On neuroplasticity, cognition, aging, medication, Alzheimer’s, board games, brain teasers, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing research find­ings on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, cog­ni­tion, aging, med­ica­tion, Alzheimer’s, board games, and more, plus some brain teasers to get you in great shape for Hal­loween. #1. Study: Play­ing board games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps slow cog­ni­tive decline as we age (but with clear dif­fer­ences in…

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Beyond the clinic: Can digital therapeutics (DTx) help boost mental health in the workforce at scale?

Hop­ing to Avoid Pear’s Fate, Behav­ioral Health-Focused DTx Com­pa­nies Look to Employ­er Mar­ket (Behav­ioral Health Busi­ness): The dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) indus­try is at a cross­roads after one of the most promi­nent com­pa­nies in the space, Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this year. The tur­moil comes after DTx began catch­ing on in the behav­ioral health…

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Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain news and a few fun brain teasers to test your per­cep­tu­al and cog­ni­tive skills. #1. Study: Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve helps delay mem­o­ry and think­ing decline regard­less of genet­ic or child­hood mark­ers “While our child­hood can influ­ence our mem­o­ry and think­ing skills lat­er in life,…

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Digital therapeutics pioneer Akili Interactive Labs goes public, raising $150M+; trades down 49% first day

Akili Inter­ac­tive is the lat­est com­pa­ny to go pub­lic via SPAC deal (Boston Busi­ness Jour­nal): Boston’s Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs Inc. is the lat­est Mass­a­chu­setts-based com­pa­ny to go pub­lic after com­plet­ing a reverse merg­er — in a year of mar­ket tur­moil that saw few local firms pass­ing the thresh­old between pri­vate and pub­lic sta­tus. Shares of…

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Wysa raises $20M to scale up mental health chatbot

Wysa rais­es $20 mil­lion to expand its ther­a­pist chat­bot into a wider set of men­tal health ser­vices (TechCrunch): Wysa, a pop­u­lar men­tal health app orig­i­nal­ly found­ed in India around an AI chat­bot that helps users talk through their feel­ings, has raised $20 mil­lion in a Series B fund­ing round to expand its busi­ness on the…

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On mental fitness beliefs, lifestyles and new tools like apps, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, “brain age gaps” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun cou­ple of math brain teasers. #1. Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it Beliefs mat­ter. #2. “Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics” vs. “Men­tal health apps”: A growing…

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