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emotional

The Do’s and Don’ts of Harnessing Technology (and Anxiety) for Good

February 28, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills and more…

#1. Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

“Tech­nol­o­gy can not only help us grow out of unhealthy habits, it is also pos­si­ble to expand human men­tal capac­i­ties … although it will be nec­es­sary to ana­lyze “the how and when” of these uses: they must be eth­i­cal­ly sound and ensure that results are ben­e­fi­cial to soci­ety.” — our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, hop­ing you all agree 🙂

If you pre­fer to read the arti­cle in Span­ish: Cómo hac­er de la tec­nología un ali­a­do en el cuida­do de la salud mental

#2. On neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, young brains, and smartphones

“As with any tool, behav­ior, activ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy, smart phones have the poten­tial to be either a use­ful and high­ly con­struc­tive asset or a destruc­tive and harm­ful diver­sion from life … What is the impact on brain devel­op­ment dur­ing the first 25 years of life when a sig­nif­i­cant part of each day is spent look­ing into a smart phone and the result­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al experiences?”

#3. Explor­ing links between hear­ing loss, demen­tia and the ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ — plus the role of hear­ing aids

“Cer­tain types of demen­tia, par­tic­u­lar­ly vas­cu­lar demen­tia, are caused when there is less blood flow reach­ing the brain. This can dam­age our brain cells. Recent stud­ies have also shown that the parts of our brain that process sounds (our audi­to­ry sys­tem) have many blood ves­sels and are vul­ner­a­ble to dam­age … Anoth­er area of research is look­ing at whether hear­ing loss indi­rect­ly affects demen­tia risk by mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed. Social iso­la­tion is anoth­er known risk fac­tor for dementia.”

#4. Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

“The find­ings of this ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­al sug­gest that CCBT with a mod­est amount of clin­i­cian sup­port has poten­tial for wider-spread imple­men­ta­tion as an effec­tive, accept­able, and effi­cient treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care.”

#6. Wear­able EEG mon­i­tor­ing start-up Epi­tel rais­es $12.5M to mar­ket seizure detec­tion system

“It is time that EEGs for the brain become as acces­si­ble as EKGs for the heart to patients through­out the coun­try. For too long essen­tial neu­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices have been inac­ces­si­ble to large parts of our pop­u­la­tion” — Dr. Chaud­ery, Prin­ci­pal at Genoa Ven­tures (co-lead investor)

#7. Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

“The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.”

#8. Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

“Most peo­ple have all heard of the fight-or-flight system—that’s the stress sys­tem, it makes your heart rate go up and you can run away real­ly fast. Well, peo­ple don’t real­ize that through evo­lu­tion in par­al­lel with the fight-or-flight sys­tem evolved an equal and oppo­site part of our ner­vous sys­tem that’s nick­named the “rest-and-digest” part of the ner­vous sys­tem, or parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. It’s basi­cal­ly the de-stress­ing part of our ner­vous sys­tem. That is what we need to acti­vate to bring our­selves back to equi­lib­ri­um when we’re in a stress­ful state.”

 

Final­ly, as promised, a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills–and more. Enjoy!

#9. Test your mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing skills with these proverbs

#10. Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#11. Did you notice the jump? Good rea­son­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing often requires prop­er atten­tion to detail…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and safe March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, En Español, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain, brain-development, cCBT, cognitive, computer-assisted cognitive behavior therapy, dementia, emotional, Epitel, health, hearing aids, Jolly Good, mental capacities, mental health, neuroplasticity, Otsuka, parasympathetic nervous system, technology, wearable EEG, Wendy Suzuki

Move, Nourish, Connect, Be: Four daily habits to protect our mental well-being while sheltering in place

April 1, 2020 by Greater Good Science Center

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It’s a crazy time. Here in the Cal­i­for­nia, we are shel­ter­ing-in-place, leav­ing the house only for essen­tials like gro­ceries and med­ical care. And while we’re all (appro­pri­ate­ly) focused on car­ing for the phys­i­cal health of our­selves, our fam­i­lies, our com­mu­ni­ties, and soci­ety at large, our men­tal, emo­tion­al, and social health needs are quick­ly emerg­ing as pro­found­ly impor­tant, as well. [Read more…] about Move, Nour­ish, Con­nect, Be: Four dai­ly habits to pro­tect our men­tal well-being while shel­ter­ing in place

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: behavioral pharmacy, coronavirus outbreak, emotional, mental, mental health, mental hygiene, mental well being, physical-health, psychologist, shelter in place, social health, well-being

Think twice before taking Aderall for cognitive enhancement: It may actually impair working memory and other cognitive abilities

July 23, 2018 by SharpBrains

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ADHD drugs do not improve cog­ni­tion in healthy col­lege stu­dents (Sci­enceDai­ly):

“Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief across col­lege cam­pus­es, atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD) med­ica­tions may fail to improve cog­ni­tion in healthy stu­dents and actu­al­ly can impair func­tion­ing, accord­ing to a study by researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rhode Island and Brown Uni­ver­si­ty. [Read more…] about Think twice before tak­ing Ader­all for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment: It may actu­al­ly impair work­ing mem­o­ry and oth­er cog­ni­tive abilities

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Peak Performance Tagged With: amphetamine, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cognitive, cognitive-abilities, emotional, improve-cognition, medications, neurocognition, prescription, prescription stimulant medications, psychostimulants, stimulant, Working-memory

How can we take cognitive and emotional health interventions–both assessments and therapies–to scale?

July 10, 2017 by SharpBrains

Tak­ing cognitive/ emo­tion­al assess­ments and ther­a­pies to scale from Sharp­Brains

This pre­sen­ta­tion took place at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 6–8th, 2016).

–> Learn more about the upcom­ing 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017). The 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit will fea­ture over thir­ty of the world’s top experts and inno­va­tors work­ing on ways to enhance our brain health and per­for­mance in light of emerg­ing neu­ro­science and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies. Addi­tion­al­ly, and for the first time, it will host a Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test to fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tive prob­lem-solv­ing between sci­en­tists, prac­ti­tion­ers, tech­nol­o­gists and entrepreneurs.

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: assessments, cognitive, emotional, therapies

Take cognitive/ emotional assessments and therapies to scale

December 3, 2016 by SharpBrains

earth_digital—–

Look­ing for­ward to the vir­tu­al sum­mit next week…we can’t wait to explore and dis­cuss, on Tues­day, Decem­ber 6th — how to Take cognitive/ emo­tion­al assess­ments and ther­a­pies to scale. Three dig­i­tal health entrepreneurs–who have col­lec­tive­ly raised over $75 mil­lion in ven­ture cap­i­tal in the last 18 months– and an investor will dis­cuss their respec­tive visions and approach­es to rev­o­lu­tion­ize brain and men­tal health in areas such as ADHD, sub­stance abuse, and gen­er­al brain fitness.

  • Chair: Rita Carter, Sci­ence writer and BBC Contributor
  • Edward Kli­phuis, Invest­ment Direc­tor at Mer­ck Ventures
  • Dr. Eddie Mar­tuc­ci, CEO of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs
  • Dr. Corey McCann, CEO of Pear Therapeutics
  • Derek Luke, CEO of InteraXon

Learn more & Reg­is­ter Here

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, Akili Interactive Labs, assessmen, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, cognitive, digital health, emotional, Interaxon, Mental-Health, Merck Ventures, Pear Therapeutics, substance-abuse, therapies, venture-capital

The American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN) launches Disruptive Technology Initiative to shape the future of Neuropsychology

November 30, 2016 by SharpBrains

aacn_box-logoTech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs are cre­at­ing enor­mous poten­tial for the future of neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and trig­ger­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to cre­ate nov­el strate­gies for both assess­ment and inter­ven­tion. Cog­ni­tive fit­ness is grow­ing into a mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar indus­try. Tar­gets have shift­ed from diag­no­sis and treat­ment of estab­lished dis­eases to ear­ly inter­ven­tion, pre­ven­tion, and cog­ni­tive enhance­ment. Ubiq­ui­tous mobile devices enable both active and pas­sive sens­ing of our cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al states, and “the Inter­net of things” promis­es to [Read more…] about The Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy (AACN) launch­es Dis­rup­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Ini­tia­tive to shape the future of Neuropsychology

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: clinical neuropsychology, cognitive, cognitive-enhancement, cognitive-fitness, Cognitive-functions, disruptive technologies, emotional, Neuropsychology

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