Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

electrodes

Neurotech start-up Paradromics raises $20M to address brain-related disorders via next-gen brain-computer interfaces

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Neu­ralink Com­peti­tor Rais­es $20 Mil­lion for Brain Implants (Bloomberg):

A com­peti­tor to Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink said it raised $20 mil­lion, enough to get it on track to intro­duce a new gen­er­a­tion of pow­er­ful and tiny elec­trodes to the human brain.

Paradromics Inc., found­ed in 2015 about a year ahead of Neu­ralink, is build­ing brain-com­put­er inter­faces that could help peo­ple with dis­or­ders rang­ing from paral­y­sis to speech imped­i­ments. [Read more…] about Neu­rotech start-up Paradromics rais­es $20M to address brain-relat­ed dis­or­ders via next-gen brain-com­put­er interfaces

The birth of “everyday” brain-computer interfaces

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Neurable Rais­es $6 Mil­lion Series A To Build An ‘Every­day’ Brain-Com­put­er Inter­face (Forbes):

“Neurable has announced a $6 mil­lion Series A round of fund­ing to move beyond VR appli­ca­tions and devel­op the every­day brain-com­put­er inter­face. These will take a head­phones form fac­tor and will tar­get con­sumers. This marks an excit­ing advance­ment for brain-com­put­er inter­faces (BCI) [Read more…] about The birth of “every­day” brain-com­put­er interfaces

Growing debate about the ethics and regulation of direct-to-consumer transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

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Accord­ing to the adver­tis­ing hype, you too can enjoy incred­i­ble neur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits in the com­fort of your own home by using a sim­ple elec­tri­cal device that offers tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS). For instance, three dif­fer­ent mod­els of tDCS devices sold online claim to improve mood, increase cre­ativ­i­ty, enhance mem­o­ry, accel­er­ate learn­ing, and com­bat pain and depres­sion. For the low, low price of between $99 and $189.95, you get a com­pact hand­held device with easy-to-use con­trols and two elec­tri­cal leads that end in small sponges. These sponges are dipped into saline solu­tion to make them cur­rent-car­ry­ing elec­trodes, then placed against your head. The web­sites typ­i­cal­ly show the sponges locat­ed on either side of the fore­head, but point out that they need to be placed else­where on the skull to acti­vate dif­fer­ent parts of the brain, depend­ing on the desired outcome.

Wher­ev­er you place the sponges, when you switch on the unit, you’re pump­ing elec­tric cur­rent into your brain, although not very much.

[Read more…] about Grow­ing debate about the ethics and reg­u­la­tion of direct-to-con­sumer tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS)

Harnessing innovative neurotechnologies to provide better urgent care at Banner Health

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For Ban­ner Health, one of the largest non-prof­it health sys­tem in the Unit­ed States, find­ing ways to make health care eas­i­er and bet­ter for our patients is at the root of every­thing we do. That’s why we are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments into the dig­i­tal health and neu­rotech space, try­ing to answer some com­mon pain points.

Let me give you an exam­ple. [Read more…] about Har­ness­ing inno­v­a­tive neu­rotech­nolo­gies to pro­vide bet­ter urgent care at Ban­ner Health

Next: Measuring the impact of space flight on cognitive performance and brain fitness

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The flight that brings space weight­less­ness to Earth (BBC Future):

“Five, four, three, two, one…”

Not many air­craft cap­tains give their pas­sen­gers a rock­et launch-style count­down before take-off, but this is no ordi­nary plane. For starters, every­one on board, apart from the crew, is a sci­en­tist and has passed a full med­ical check – includ­ing a heart assess­ment. This is not a trip for ner­vous fliers [Read more…] about Next: Mea­sur­ing the impact of space flight on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and brain fitness

Ethical issues raised around deep brain stimulation (DBS) research

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Researchers grap­ple with the ethics of test­ing brain implants (Sci­ence):

“In 2003, neu­rol­o­gist Helen May­berg of Emory Uni­ver­si­ty in Atlanta began to test a bold, exper­i­men­tal treat­ment for peo­ple with severe depres­sion, which involved implant­i­ng met­al elec­trodes deep in the brain in a region called area 25. The ini­tial data were promis­ing; even­tu­al­ly, they con­vinced a device com­pa­ny, St. Jude Med­ical in Saint Paul, to spon­sor a 200-per­son clin­i­cal tri­al dubbed BROADEN.

This month, how­ev­er, [Read more…] about Eth­i­cal issues raised around deep brain stim­u­la­tion (DBS) research