electroencephalogram

Becoming better mind-wanderers to boost problem-solving and mood

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I’m a big believ­er in day­dream­ing now and then—especially when I’m out hik­ing. There’s some­thing about being in nature that helps me let go of dai­ly cares and allows my mind to wan­der where it will, which feels great and often jump­starts my cre­ativ­i­ty as a writer and musician.

I admit, though, I’ve been trou­bled by research show­ing how mind-wan­der­ing could make me less pro­duc­tive or depressed—the last thing I need! But it turns out this gap between per­son­al expe­ri­ence and sci­ence may best be explained by how researchers have lumped togeth­er dif­fer­ent kinds of mind-wan­der­ing. Not all research has dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed between depres­sive rumi­na­tion (like replay­ing an ongo­ing dis­agree­ment with our spouse in our minds) and pleas­ant day­dream­ing (let­ting our minds wan­der freely). [Read more…] about Becom­ing bet­ter mind-wan­der­ers to boost prob­lem-solv­ing and mood

Study shows promising results of EEG-based brain training in helping adults with ADHD

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Man­ag­ing atten­tion deficit dis­or­der by train­ing the brain (Sci­enceDai­ly):

Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD) affects about 7% of chil­dren, with a two out of three chance of per­sist­ing into adult­hood. This neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der is char­ac­terised by con­cen­tra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, increased dis­tractibil­i­ty, impul­siv­i­ty and hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty. Today, ADHD is treat­ed with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs that may have unwant­ed side effects. This is why sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Gene­va (UNIGE) and the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tals of Gene­va (HUG), Switzer­land, explored a new tech­nique called ‘neu­ro­feed­back’, which enables ADHD patients to train their atten­tion, based on instant feed­back from the lev­el of their brain activ­i­ty. [Read more…] about Study shows promis­ing results of EEG-based brain train­ing in help­ing adults with ADHD

Cumulus Neuroscience raises $8.3M to develop EEG-based wireless ‘Fitbit for the brain’

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Belfast-based Cumu­lus rais­es €6.9m for its ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ (The Irish Times):

… For­mer­ly known as Brain­Wave­Bank, the com­pa­ny has devel­oped a wire­less elec­troen­cephalo­gram (EEG) head­set and pro­pri­etary soft­ware plat­form that use advanced ana­lyt­ics and machine learn­ing to mea­sure cog­ni­tive fitness.

“This fund­ing will allow us to build on the ground-break­ing advances we have made in remote, fre­quent mon­i­tor­ing of brain activ­i­ty and cog­ni­tive func­tion in the home, in part­ner­ship with lead­ing devel­op­ers of dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers,” said Mr Cun­ning­ham, the company’s chief exec­u­tive. [Read more…] about Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’

DARPA paving the way for a future brain-based Internet

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DARPA Wants Brain Inter­faces for Able-Bod­ied Warfight­ers (IEEE Spectrum):

“Until now, the neu­ro­science pro­grams at DARPA, the mad sci­ence wing of the Depart­ment of Defense, have focused on tech­nolo­gies for warfight­ers who have returned home with dis­abil­i­ties of the body or brain. For exam­ple, pro­grams have fund­ed research on pros­thet­ic limbs that are wired into the ner­vous sys­tem and brain implants that could treat post-trau­mat­ic stress disorder.

But the way the mil­i­tary fights wars is chang­ing, and so must DARPA’s pri­or­i­ties [Read more…] about DARPA paving the way for a future brain-based Internet

DARPA invests in nonsurgical neurotechnologies for eventual use in healthy human subjects

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Non­sur­gi­cal Neur­al Inter­faces Could Sig­nif­i­cant­ly Expand Use of Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (DARPA News):

“Over the past two decades, the inter­na­tion­al bio­med­ical research com­mu­ni­ty has demon­strat­ed increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed ways to allow a per­son­’s brain to com­mu­ni­cate with a device, allow­ing break­throughs aimed at improv­ing qual­i­ty of life, such as access to com­put­ers and the inter­net, and more recent­ly con­trol of a pros­thet­ic limb.

The state of the art in brain-sys­tem com­mu­ni­ca­tions has employed inva­sive tech­niques that allow pre­cise, high-qual­i­ty con­nec­tions to spe­cif­ic neu­rons or groups of neu­rons. These tech­niques have helped patients with brain injury and oth­er ill­ness­es. How­ev­er, these tech­niques are not appro­pri­ate for able-bod­ied peo­ple. DARPA now seeks to achieve high lev­els of brain-sys­tem com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­out surgery, in its new pro­gram, Next-Gen­er­a­tion Non­sur­gi­cal Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (N3). [Read more…] about DARPA invests in non­sur­gi­cal neu­rotech­nolo­gies for even­tu­al use in healthy human subjects

Augmenting physiotherapy via neurofeedback and neurostimulation: Key neurotechnology patent #43

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therapy control
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 8,121,694

Today we are shar­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing patent from Medtron­ic.  (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing 50 foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patents, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 8,121,694: Therapy control based on a patient movement state

  • Assignee(s): Medtron­ic, Inc.
  • Inventor(s): Gre­go­ry F. Mol­nar, Steven S. Gill, Kei­th A, Miesel, Mark S. Lent, Tim­o­thy J. Deni­son, Eric J. Panken, Carl D. Wahlstrand, Jonathan C. Werder
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neuro-monitoring
  • Issue Date: Feb­ru­ary 21, 2012

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘694 patent dis­clos­es meth­ods to treat patients afflict­ed with move­ment or oth­er neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders through brain-sig­nal feed­back. [Read more…] about Aug­ment­ing phys­io­ther­a­py via neu­ro­feed­back and neu­rostim­u­la­tion: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #43