Could technology help cure depression among older adults? (Short answer: Yes)

___ 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,…

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Initial study finds promise and limitations in using virtual reality (VR) to treat ADHD

___ 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,…

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Update: Large study finds that consistent use of ADHD medication may stunt growth by 2 inches (5 centimeters)

___ 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,…

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Next in clinical practice: Automated real-time detection of seizures via wearable EMG devices

___ Wear­able EMG Found to Detect Seizures (Neu­rol­o­gy Today): “A new study demon­strates the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using a wear­able elec­tromyo­g­ra­phy device to detect ton­ic-clonic seizures…The Neu­rol­o­gy paper was among the first to demon­strate its results prospec­tive­ly, using a pre-spec­i­­fied cut-off for deter­min­ing that a GTCS is occur­ring. And at nine sec­onds, its laten­cy in doing so…

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Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge funds program testing neurofeedback-based brain training to reduce cravings and battle opioid addiction

_______ Bat­tling Addic­tion With Brain­pow­er (Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton press release): “The Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton Research Insti­tute has won a $10,000 Ohio Opi­oid Tech­nol­o­gy Chal­lenge award for a pro­gram that will teach peo­ple with opi­oid addic­tions how to reduce their crav­ings by regain­ing con­trol of their brains. “Using neu­ro­feed­back, we’ll work with our vol­un­teers to help…

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Jan Samzelius, CEO of Brainnovations Winner NeuraMetrix, encourages pioneers to focus on “simple, elegant solutions to big problems”

What sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test last month? Even with only a brief pre­sen­ta­tion the judges imme­di­ate­ly got the poten­tial impact of our tech­nol­o­gy to mea­sure and mon­i­tor brain health and began to think about oth­er appli­ca­tions for us – sev­er­al we had not thought about. That…

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