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Dear read­er,

Time for Sharp­Brains month­ly e-newslet­ter, dis­cussing the lat­est inno­va­tions for brain health and men­tal health, and open­ing in this occa­sion with an impor­tant wake-up call.

New research:

• Only 5% of US chil­dren ages 8–11 fol­low screen time, sleep and exer­cise guide­lines rec­om­mend­ed for brain devel­op­ment
• Neu­ro­feed­back or med­ica­tion to treat ADHD?
• New study rein­forces need for proac­tive cog­ni­tive mon­i­tor­ing after heart surgery
• One-week brain train­ing can increase cog­ni­tive flex­i­bil­i­ty and reduce OCD symp­toms

New tools:

• Tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion shows ear­ly promise to ame­lio­rate depres­sion, espe­cial­ly if com­bined with oth­er ther­a­pies and dosage opti­mized
• 10-minute cog­ni­tive test MoCA helps pre­dict long-term motor, cog­ni­tive and mor­tal­i­ty out­comes after stroke
• The Ontario Brain Insti­tute selects 6 neu­rotech start-ups for ONtre­pre­neurs pro­gram
• Antic­i­pat­ing eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of DARPA’s neu­rotech­nol­o­gy push

New thinking:

• Time to adopt Mind­ful­ness-Based Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py (MBCT) as a pub­lic health inter­ven­tion to ease depres­sion?
• Towards a new cul­ture of Brain Health and Brain Fit­ness
• Best pre­dic­tor of sus­tained weight-loss? Pre­frontal cor­tex acti­va­tion
• Helius Med­ical and HealthTech Con­nex part­ner to devel­op neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty clin­ics in Cana­da

Hap­py Hal­loween and have a great month of Novem­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Neu­ro­feed­back (NF) is an approach for treat­ing ADHD in which indi­vid­u­als receive real-time feed­back on their brain­wave activ­i­ty and taught to alter their typ­i­cal EEG pat­tern to one that is con­sis­tent with a more focused and atten­tive state.

While con­sid­er­able research sup­ports the effec­tive­ness of neu­ro­feed­back for many chil­dren with ADHD, rel­a­tive­ly few stud­ies have direct­ly com­pared neu­ro­feed­back to ADHD med­ica­tion. Read the rest of this entry »

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Why tech­nol­o­gy — not med­ica­tion — is the future of treat­ing old­er adults with depres­sion (McKnight’s Long-term Care News):

“The go-to treat­ment for many cas­es of depres­sion is med­ica­tion.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this treat­ment option can cause as many issues as the prob­lem it is try­ing to solve. Anti­de­pres­sants can put res­i­dents at greater risk of falls, neg­a­tive health com­pli­ca­tions and oth­er poor con­di­tions. Some stud­ies indi­cate that anti­de­pres­sants may not be effec­tive for most old­er Amer­i­cans. Read the rest of this entry »

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Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of exist­ing evi­dence-based ADHD treat­ments, i.e., stim­u­lant med­ica­tion and behav­ior ther­a­py — research on nov­el inter­ven­tion approach­es con­tin­ues to be impor­tant.

Cog­ni­tive train­ing is one such approach that has been sug­gest­ed as a poten­tial adjunct or even replace­ment for med­ica­tion treat­ment. While cog­ni­tive train­ing takes dif­fer­ent forms, e.g., com­put­er­ized atten­tion train­ing, work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing, the basic idea is that by repeat­ed­ly prac­tic­ing cog­ni­tive tasks relat­ed to atten­tion, one’s abil­i­ty to focus and attend will improve. In oth­er words, Read the rest of this entry »

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter, bring­ing you lat­est news around med­ica­tion, brain train­ing, sup­ple­ments, mind-wan­der­ing, dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics, wear­ables, and more — and also a few quick brain teasers to wrap-up.

New research:

• Con­sis­tent use of ADHD med­ica­tion may stunt growth by 2 inch­es, large study finds
• Mind-wan­der­ing may help enhance cre­ativ­i­ty, job per­for­mance and gen­er­al well-being, stud­ies show
• The ulti­mate in trans­fer from brain train­ing to real-world out­comes: Reduc­ing the risk of at-fault acci­dents by almost 50%

New thinking:

• AARP, TINA.org and the Nation­al Con­sumers League join forces to chal­lenge Pre­vagen mem­o­ry improve­ment claims
• Rein­vent­ing Brain Med­i­cine, phar­ma adopts dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics: Evi­dence-based videogames, smart­phone apps, and sen­sors
• For­get the Oscars — the Greater Good­ies hon­or ten films that high­light the growth mind­set, resilience, and more

New tools:

• Next in clin­i­cal prac­tice: Auto­mat­ed real-time detec­tion of seizures via wear­able EMG devices
• DARPA invests in non­sur­gi­cal neu­rotech­nolo­gies for even­tu­al use in healthy human sub­jects

Final­ly, we have a cou­ple of fun, quick brain teasers for you, and also a selec­tion of arti­cles to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2018.

Have a great spring,

The Sharp­Brains Team