Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

digital therapeutics

Integrating music, movement and stroke rehabilitation, MedRhythms raises $25M to develop and commercialize digital therapeutic

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MedRhythms rais­es 25m to get patients back in tune after a stroke (TechCrunch):

MedRhythms secured $25 mil­lion in Series B fund­ing to advance its dig­i­tal ther­a­py plat­form aimed at mea­sur­ing and improv­ing someone’s abil­i­ty to walk after they have expe­ri­enced a neu­ro­log­ic injury or dis­ease … Com­pa­ny co-founder and CEO Bri­an Har­ris was a neu­ro­log­ic music fel­low at Spauld­ing Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Hos­pi­tal in Boston, treat­ing peo­ple with stroke and brain deficits with music. He began get­ting ques­tions from patients and fam­i­lies on how they could access sim­i­lar care out­side of the hos­pi­tal. Not see­ing a suit­able alter­na­tive, he start­ed MedRhythms with entre­pre­neur Owen McCarthy in 2016. [Read more…] about Inte­grat­ing music, move­ment and stroke reha­bil­i­ta­tion, MedRhythms rais­es $25M to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize dig­i­tal therapeutic

AI-powered Woebot raises $90M to scale up digital self-therapy platform

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‘Dig­i­tal ther­a­pist’ Woe­bot perks up with $90M for AI-pow­ered men­tal health plat­form (Fierce­Biotech):

In news sure to excite even the most melan­choly of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-pow­ered chat­bots, men­tal health plat­form Woe­bot has closed its series B fund­ing round with a whop­ping $90 mil­lion. [Read more…] about AI-pow­ered Woe­bot rais­es $90M to scale up dig­i­tal self-ther­a­py platform

Prescription software firm Pear Therapeutics to go public via $1.6 billion SPAC deal, harnessing 3 FDA-authorized products and 14 candidates

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Pear Ther­a­peu­tics to Go Pub­lic in Rough­ly $1.6 Bil­lion SPAC Deal (The Wall Street Journal):

Med­ical tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Pear Ther­a­peu­tics Inc. has agreed to go pub­lic by merg­ing with a blank-check com­pa­ny with ties to the Pritzk­er Vlock Fam­i­ly Office, bet­ting on the grow­ing role of pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal therapeutics.

The pro­posed merg­er would give the com­bined com­pa­ny a pro for­ma equi­ty val­ue of about $1.6 bil­lion. [Read more…] about Pre­scrip­tion soft­ware firm Pear Ther­a­peu­tics to go pub­lic via $1.6 bil­lion SPAC deal, har­ness­ing 3 FDA-autho­rized prod­ucts and 14 candidates

Akili Interactive Labs raises $160M in equity and debt to transform cognitive healthcare via prescription videogame treatments

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Akili rais­es $110m to build its dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline (phar­mafo­rum):

Endeav­or­Rx became the first and so far only approved pre­scrip­tion video game treat­ment in the US when it was cleared by the FDA last year to treat atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), and has also been giv­en a green light in Europe. [Read more…] about Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treatments

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbot Wysa raises $5.5M to broaden access to mental health support

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Wysa’s AI-Guid­ed Men­tal Health Plat­form Clos­es $5.5M Series A to Bridge the Gap in Employ­ee Men­tal Health (press release):

“Wysa, the lead­ing glob­al AI-pow­ered men­tal health plat­form, today, dur­ing Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, announced a $5.5M Series A financ­ing round led by W Health Ven­tures, a Boston-based dig­i­tal health investor. Oth­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the round include the Google Assis­tant Invest­ment pro­gram, and exist­ing investors pi Ven­tures and Kae Cap­i­tal. Wysa will use this cap­i­tal to sup­port its offer­ing to employ­ers who want to expand their men­tal health ben­e­fits, as well as scale up Wysa’s sales team and ther­a­pist net­work. [Read more…] about Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

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Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fitness.

#1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study 🙂

Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.”

#2. Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Mem­o­ry: “It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong” … Gen­o­va assures her read­ers that only two per cent of Alzheimer’s cas­es are of the strict­ly inher­it­ed, ear­ly-onset kind. For most of us, our chances of devel­op­ing the dis­ease are high­ly amenable to interventions…”

#3. Time­ly tips for the week­end: Shape your envi­ron­ment, shape your mind

  • Sur­round your­self with nature
  • Cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for awe
  • Clear the clutter

#4. “For a mis­sion to suc­ceed, high men­tal and cog­ni­tive func­tion would be absolute­ly crit­i­cal; astro­nauts would be called on to per­form demand­ing tasks in a demand­ing envi­ron­ment. Los­ing 20 IQ points halfway to Mars is not an option … Stress—an emo­tion­al or men­tal state result­ing from tense or over­whelm­ing circumstances—and the body’s response to it, which involves mul­ti­ple sys­tems, from metab­o­lism to mus­cles to memory—may be the chief chal­lenge that astro­nauts face.” Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

#5. Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accu­rate (based on a cool opti­cal illusion)

#6. It’s good to have more tools in the neu­ro toolkit…assuming we use them wise­ly: Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

#7. Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

#8. Men­tal Health in the Dig­i­tal Age: From dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to per­son­al­ized men­tal health solu­tions: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics expands plat­form via part­ner­ships with Empat­i­ca, etec­tRx, Key­Wise, and Winterlight

#9. The award was won last year by Indi­an vil­lage teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale; who will be next? Final day to nom­i­nate teach­ers for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize 2021

#10. And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, let’s wel­come Men­tal Health Month (May) by appre­ci­at­ing our beau­ti­ful brains

Wish­ing you a men­tal­ly healthy and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team