medical

Study finds combined pharma + non-pharma treatment most beneficial to help youth with ADHD address long-term academic difficulties

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Aca­d­e­m­ic dif­fi­cul­ties are one of the most impor­tant adverse con­se­quences of ADHD, and they fre­quent­ly con­tribute to par­ents’ deci­sion to seek treat­ment for their child. Whether treat­ment con­sis­tent­ly yields a pos­i­tive impact on long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess is thus an impor­tant issue; how­ev­er, the answer to this ques­tion has been some­what con­tro­ver­sial. [Read more…] about Study finds com­bined phar­ma + non-phar­ma treat­ment most ben­e­fi­cial to help youth with ADHD address long-term aca­d­e­m­ic difficulties

Coming soon: Assessing your mental health while you talk on a phone, type on a keyboard, or scroll through a website

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Tech Watch­es You for Dig­i­tal Symp­toms of Brain Dis­or­ders (IEEE Spectrum):

The med­ical pro­fes­sion­als tasked with car­ing for our minds don’t have an easy job. To diag­nose peo­ple with neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­eases, doc­tors can per­form brain scans, but such scans are expen­sive and the results are some­times inscrutable. The oth­er options include con­duct­ing time-­con­sum­ing cog­ni­tive tests, or rely­ing on doc­tors’ own sub­jec­tive analyses.

See­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty, a num­ber of star­tups have devised quan­ti­ta­tive meth­ods to diag­nose dis­eases or assess men­tal health while patients com­plete rou­tine activ­i­ties, like talk­ing on a smart­phone, typ­ing on a key­board, or scrolling through a web­site. Here are three com­pa­nies that say they can lift the “fin­ger­prints” of men­tal dis­or­ders from people’s mun­dane behaviors.

Con­tin­ue read­ing arti­cle to get a good update on Mind­strong Health, Neu­raMetrix and Win­terLight Labs. [Read more…] about Com­ing soon: Assess­ing your men­tal health while you talk on a phone, type on a key­board, or scroll through a website

Dr. Albert Kwon, CEO of Brainnovations Winner AUGMENTx, wants to harness Augmented Reality to significantly ease access to Neurological Rehabilitation Therapies

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Albert, what sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Contest?

It was a pleas­ant sur­prise to receive so many votes and such great feed­back, which solid­i­fied my con­vic­tion that there is a great need to cre­ate new ther­a­py options for stroke patients and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal injuries, espe­cial­ly giv­en our aging pop­u­la­tion.  Med­ical sys­tems world­wide will strug­gle to han­dle the grow­ing bur­den of chron­ic ill­ness­es unless we start act­ing soon.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind AUG­MEN­Tx?

The core idea is to lever­age visu­al-cog­ni­tive and visu­al-motor/sen­so­ry con­nec­tions of the brain to enhance per­for­mance in dis­ease states.  For exam­ple, mir­ror ther­a­py takes advan­tage of the mir­ror neu­ron path­way to improve post-stroke motor recov­ery and to alle­vi­ate phan­tom limb pain in limb amputees.  And we believe that these ther­a­pies can be deliv­ered on dig­i­tized AR plat­forms, instead of being always con­fined to few spe­cial­ized phys­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­ters.  Why not have them be acces­si­ble from the patient’s home [Read more…] about Dr. Albert Kwon, CEO of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner AUG­MEN­Tx, wants to har­ness Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty to sig­nif­i­cant­ly ease access to Neu­ro­log­i­cal Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Therapies

Australian neurotech firm raises $4m to develop neurofeedback-based headband aimed at helping kids with autism relax and better engage

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Neu­rotech founder Adri­an Tre­visan (left) with chief exec­u­tive Wolf­gang Storf (right)

Neu­rotech rais­es $4m for med­ical device (Busi­ness News West­ern Australia):

“Med­ical tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Neu­rotech Inter­na­tion­al has tapped investors for $4m to fund fur­ther devel­op­ment of its Mente Autism device…which uses neu­ro­feed­back tech­nol­o­gy to help chil­dren with autism spec­trum dis­or­der.” [Read more…] about Aus­tralian neu­rotech firm rais­es $4m to devel­op neu­ro­feed­back-based head­band aimed at help­ing kids with autism relax and bet­ter engage

Executive Functions in Health and Disease: New book to help integrate Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

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Neu­ro­science used to be the monop­oly of a few elite uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy used to be a quaint niche dis­ci­pline rel­a­tive­ly uncon­nect­ed to the larg­er world of neu­ro­science and con­tent in its meth­ods with paper-and-pen­cil tests. [Read more…] about Exec­u­tive Func­tions in Health and Dis­ease: New book to help inte­grate Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Neuropsychology

Trend: With 25% of US physicians aged 65+, hospitals test older doctors on mental and physical acuity

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When Are Doc­tors Too Old to Prac­tice? (The Wall Street Journal):

“In Feb­ru­ary, Robert Brown received an email that left him trou­bled. The New Jer­sey hos­pi­tal where the 71-year-old pedi­a­tri­cian was prac­tic­ing informed him that doc­tors age 72 and old­er would have to take a test to assess their phys­i­cal and men­tal health—or risk los­ing their priv­i­leges [Read more…] about Trend: With 25% of US physi­cians aged 65+, hos­pi­tals test old­er doc­tors on men­tal and phys­i­cal acuity