ketamine

On cognitive-physical training, brain biomarkers, dementia, ketamine, brain teasers, riddles and more

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Wel­come to the last 2022 edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a few select­ed brain health news and fun teasers to chal­lenge your brain and help us all think out­side the box.

#1. “Every­one agrees that Google Glass failed when it came to mar­ket, but to me, it’s a sym­bol of hope … It inspired peo­ple to think beyond tra­di­tion­al ways of mov­ing about our envi­ron­ment. Instead of look­ing down at a device, we could look out at the world and have an over­lay of dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion. It was one of the first steps in physical–digital con­ver­gence that we are see­ing today through­out many indus­tries. And as some­one who has cre­at­ed many inven­tions that nev­er left the lab or were too ear­ly for the mar­ket, I love the fact that Glass came out at all!” — wise words by neu­rotech entre­pre­neur Dr. Cori Lath­an in her new (and excel­lent) book. See Tech­nol­o­gy as a bridge in time: Shap­ing the future of brain health via today’s innovations–including those that “fail”

#2. “Some peo­ple want to do cog­ni­tive train­ing while mov­ing rather than sit­ting down, and that real­ly spoke to me as a pos­si­bil­i­ty for real ben­e­fits giv­en anec­do­tal sto­ries about games like ‘Dance Dance Rev­o­lu­tion.’” — Joaquin A. Anguera, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at UCSF and direc­tor of Neuroscape‘s Clin­i­cal Divi­sion. See Study: A com­bined cog­ni­tive-phys­i­cal train­ing approach may enhance both mind and body as we age

#3. “Giv­en that ketamine’s rapid action and unex­pect­ed dis­so­cia­tive effects make it a poten­tial­ly worth­while option for treat­ing men­tal health prob­lems, we are on a mis­sion to unpack this mys­tery, at the cross­roads between phar­ma­col­o­gy and neu­ro­science.” See Study iden­ti­fies cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of ket­a­mine in patients with treat­ment-resis­tant depression

#4. “The grat­i­tude writ­ing group main­tained grat­i­tude lev­els and decreased stress and neg­a­tive affect at one-month post-inter­ven­tion” — that main­te­nance aspect is espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing. See Thanks­giv­ing works: Grat­i­tude jour­nal­ing seen to low­er stress and neg­a­tive cog­ni­tive processes

#5. Impres­sive new funding–especially giv­en mar­ket conditions–with a goal to iden­ti­fy “brain bio­mark­ers by ana­lyz­ing EEG activ­i­ty, behav­ioral task per­for­mance, wear­able data, genet­ics, and oth­er fac­tors to match each patient with the right Alto drug.” See Pre­ci­sion psy­chi­a­try pio­neer Alto Neu­ro­science rais­es $35M to advance dig­i­tal bio­mark­er-to-treat­ment platform

#6. Some bad news. See The FDA ends pre­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (Pre-Cert) pilot pro­gram, say­ing new author­i­ty required to reg­u­late soft­ware as a med­ical device (SaMD)

#7. And some great news: “(Péter Hudomi­et, study’s lead author) said it’s also pos­si­ble that, giv­en numer­ous stud­ies being released on steps to take to avoid demen­tia, some of the decline may be attrib­uted to peo­ple heed­ing such advice.” See Study finds sharp decrease (near­ly one-third) in the preva­lence of demen­tia among those 65+ in the Unit­ed States

#8. Final­ly, here are a few brain teasers to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes and to help us all think out­side the box.

 

Have a healthy and won­der­ful 2023!

 

Study identifies cognitive benefits of ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression

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Ket­a­mine mol­e­cules attach them­selves to NMDA neu­ronal recep­tors, which play an impor­tant role in brain plas­tic­i­ty and pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing. C22H31NO2, CC BY-SA

Which fac­tors deter­mine what we believe about our world, our­selves, our past, and our future? Cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science sug­gests that our beliefs are depen­dent on brain activ­i­ty, specif­i­cal­ly on the way our brains process sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion in order to make sense of our environment.

These beliefs (defined as prob­a­bil­i­ty esti­mates) are cen­tral to our brain’s pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing func­tion, which enables it to pre­dict the prob­a­bilis­tic struc­ture of the world around us. These pre­dic­tions could even be the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks of men­tal states, such as per­cep­tions and emotions.

Many psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, such as depres­sion and schiz­o­phre­nia, are char­ac­terised by irreg­u­lar beliefs whose ori­gins we still don’t ful­ly under­stand. But if we can iden­ti­fy the cere­bral sys­tems gov­ern­ing them, we could tar­get those very areas in a bid to alle­vi­ate the pain asso­ci­at­ed to these ill­ness­es. [Read more…] about Study iden­ti­fies cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of ket­a­mine in patients with treat­ment-resis­tant depression

FDA-approved, Cybin-sponsored clinicial trial to measure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Kernel Flow neuroimaging helmet

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Kernel’s Brain-Imag­ing Hel­met Approved For Clin­i­cal Tri­al On Patients Using Ket­a­mine (Forbes):

The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion has approved a clin­i­cal tri­al using a neu­roimag­ing hel­met made by Los Ange­les-based Ker­nel to track what hap­pens in the brain when a human takes a psy­che­del­ic dose of ket­a­mine. [Read more…] about FDA-approved, Cybin-spon­sored clin­i­cial tri­al to mea­sure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Ker­nel Flow neu­roimag­ing helmet

Study: Psychedelics can promote neural plasticity in the prefrontal cortex and expand pathways for mental health

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– Cred­it: Cell Reports 2018 23, 3170–3182DOI: (10.1016/j.celrep.2018.05.022). Copy­right © 2018 The Authors

Psy­che­delics in Neu­rol­o­gy: Poten­tial for Improv­ing Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty (Neu­rol­o­gy­Times):

“Back in the 1950s, research was prov­ing that psy­che­del­ic agents could be effec­tive in the treat­ment of var­i­ous neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, just as sci­ence was explor­ing their ben­e­fi­cial effects, the coun­ter­cul­ture was explor­ing and embrac­ing their effects. Slow­ly but sure­ly, psy­che­delics were asso­ci­at­ed with rebel­lious youth and the tumul­tuous anti-war move­ment. As a result, the gov­ern­ment shut down most of the research.

The 1990s saw renewed inter­est in psy­che­del­ic com­pounds as a means to address neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders. Research explored the ben­e­fits of MDMA and ket­a­mine to treat mood dis­or­ders and post­trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der. Now, a new study sheds even more light on the promise these agents might pro­vide. [Read more…] about Study: Psy­che­delics can pro­mote neur­al plas­tic­i­ty in the pre­frontal cor­tex and expand path­ways for men­tal health