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5 Facts You Need To Know To Understand, Navigate And Enjoy The Digital Brain Health Revolution

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Hun­dreds of com­pa­nies around the globe, now includ­ing Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink and even Face­book,  are research­ing and devel­op­ing new ways to help brain own­ers be smarter, sharp­er, and healthier.

What explains this flur­ry of activ­i­ty? Where may it be headed?

To help you under­stand what’s going on, let me high­light five key facts that emerged from the recent Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit.

 

Fact 1. There are 7.5 billion human brains out there, and everyone needs help

Con­sid­er all unmet needs derived from the tra­di­tion­al phar­ma-exclu­sive approach to brain health.

Learn­ing and cog­ni­tive dis­abil­i­ties in chil­dren are grow­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from ADHD and OCD, to autism. The relat­ed emo­tion­al and eco­nom­ic bur­den is sub­stan­tial — yet, over 60–70% of those with treat­ment have poor out­comes, and many who need help don’t get any.

Glob­al­ly, around 350 mil­lion peo­ple suf­fer from depres­sion. Add to that sub­stance abuse, and we are talk­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple with­out prop­er care and very high relapse rates for the lucky ones get­ting help.

Con­cus­sions and brain impair­ments per­vade through mil­lions of vet­er­ans and high-con­tact sports prac­ti­tion­ers, yet diag­no­sis and treat­ments are elusive.

And let’s not for­get the per­fect­ly healthy. [Read more…] about 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Revolution

Four reasons the future of brain health is digital, pervasive and bright

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Hun­dreds of com­pa­nies and sci­ence labs around the globe are research­ing the inner work­ings of the human brain and mind, and devel­op­ing new ways to help brain own­ers be smarter, sharp­er, and health­i­er for longer.

What explains this flur­ry of activ­i­ty? [Read more…] about Four rea­sons the future of brain health is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and bright

Witnessing an explosion of consumer-facing neurotechnologies to (potentially) harness lifelong neuroplasticity

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Last week I shared some key sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and invest­ment trends rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Brain Health, based on my par­tic­i­pa­tion at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, and promised a sec­ond arti­cle more focused on the tech­nol­o­gy side of things.

Here it is 🙂

Just a few weeks after the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit I also attend­ed CES 2017. While I enjoyed the myr­i­ad emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies –autonomous vehi­cles, robot­ics, drones, aug­ment­ed and vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­sets, voice acti­vat­ed every­thing– I was most­ly struck by a firm named Halo Neu­ro­science. They have a fas­ci­nat­ing wear­able prod­uct, Halo Sport, claim­ing to accel­er­ate gains in strength, explo­sive­ness, endurance, and mus­cle mem­o­ry, improv­ing the brain’s response to ath­let­ic train­ing. It uses tDCS (tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion), essen­tial­ly prim­ing move­ment-relat­ed cir­cuits of the brain to become more recep­tive to stim­uli, help­ing the brain wire in the prac­tice for improved future response.

The cutting edge of applied neuroplasticity

Both con­fer­ences allowed me to see the cut­ting edge of [Read more…] about Wit­ness­ing an explo­sion of con­sumer-fac­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies to (poten­tial­ly) har­ness life­long neuroplasticity

Survey of key scientific, technological and investment trends revolutionizing Brain Health in our Digital Age

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Last year I got very inter­est­ed in the func­tion­ing of the human brain and the sci­ence behind mind­ful­ness and learn­ing [1], so was quite excit­ed  to attend the Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit [2] in Decem­ber, indulging in the lat­est trends in applied neu­ro­science and dig­i­tal innovation.

The Sum­mit focused on the theme of rein­vent­ing brain health in the dig­i­tal age, and brought togeth­er lead­ing researchers, entre­pre­neurs, financiers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers pas­sion­ate with the mis­sion of mov­ing neu­ro­science and cog­ni­tive research from sci­ence labs towards appli­ca­tions in Health, Well­ness and Edu­ca­tion. Here’s a sum­ma­ry of the many things I dis­cov­ered. [Read more…] about Sur­vey of key sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and invest­ment trends rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Brain Health in our Dig­i­tal Age

Learning how to mindfully navigate mindfulness apps

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mindfulness appThe Trou­ble with Mind­ful­ness Apps (Mind­ful):

“Be pre­pared to be bored.

This is the gist of one of the noti­fi­ca­tions you receive before you try the body scan med­i­ta­tion from Mind­ful Mood Bal­ance, a web-based pro­gram cur­rent­ly being pilot­ed in [Read more…] about Learn­ing how to mind­ful­ly nav­i­gate mind­ful­ness apps

September update: Revolutions in neurotechnology will soon influence every aspect of human life

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headspaceTime for Sharp­Brains’ Sep­tem­ber e‑newsletter, wrap­ping up this month’s key brain-relat­ed news.

Our brain is at the core of every­thing we do, from the every-day deci­sions we make to the epic emo­tions we feel when we fall in love. And neurotechnologies–especially those that, being dig­i­tal, are emi­nently scal­able, and that, being non-inva­sive, pose few if any neg­a­tive side-effects–are poised to become ubiq­ui­tous, per­va­sive…Keep read­ing the Pre­lim­i­nary Agen­da of the 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Novem­ber 17–19th), which fea­tures 32 con­firmed, stel­lar speak­ers so far!

Innovation news:

Research news:

Food for thought:

 

Final­ly, a reminder to Save Your Spot for 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (Novem­ber 17–19th) —  10% dis­count code: sharp2015

Have a great month of October!

The Sharp­Brains Team