meditation

Update: Why MDMA-assisted psychotherapy may become an FDA-approved treatment for PTSD within 2 years

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, shar­ing impor­tant brain/ men­tal health news plus a few fun opti­cal illu­sions to tease and appre­ci­ate our unique human minds.

#1. Why MDMA-assist­ed psy­chother­a­py may become an FDA-approved treat­ment for PTSD with­in 2 years

“We are a phar­ma­cist and physi­cian team who inves­ti­gate the ben­e­fits and harms asso­ci­at­ed with sub­stances of abuse like bath salts, phenibut, cannabis and syn­thet­ic mar­i­jua­na. Through this work we have become intrigued about the ther­a­peu­tic poten­tial for some psy­che­del­ic drugs in the treat­ment of myr­i­ad psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, from PTSD to major depres­sion … It is impor­tant to state that using ecsta­sy or mol­ly prod­ucts from the street would not help PTSD symp­toms because the MDMA needs be used along with care­ful­ly craft­ed psy­chother­a­py in a safe, con­trolled envi­ron­ment. Ecsta­sy or mol­ly prod­ucts pur­chased illic­it­ly nev­er spec­i­fy the exact amount of MDMA they con­tain, so it is impos­si­ble to dose it prop­er­ly for PTSD. Tak­ing too much MDMA or exer­cis­ing while tak­ing MDMA can cause heart attacks, strokes, seizures and arrhyth­mias and can dam­age mus­cles and kidneys.”

#2. Ten insights on human well-being and poten­tial from two giants we sad­ly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener

“Your well-being can change: One com­mon notion with­in psy­chol­o­gy before the pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy move­ment was that indi­vid­u­als had a set hap­pi­ness point, and that this point did not change dras­ti­cal­ly. So why both­er try­ing to improve it, right? Diener helped to change that nar­ra­tive by find­ing that cer­tain sig­nif­i­cant events did in fact change well-being per­ma­nent­ly. This sug­gests that inter­ven­tions can have a last­ing impact, and has paved the way for pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gists to focus on apply­ing their research to improve the human condition.”

#3. Com­plex occu­pa­tions help pro­tect our brains from aging-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline

“ … dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive decline have been often observed in asso­ci­a­tion with edu­ca­tion or oth­er relat­ed to qual­i­ty of life. From our analy­sis it emerges that the type of work activ­i­ty also con­tributes to the dif­fer­ences in nor­mal and patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive aging”

#4. On brain fold­ing and fit­ting 86 bil­lion neu­rons inside our 1400 cc crania

“Under­stand­ing the mech­a­nisms behind brain fold­ing and con­nec­tiv­i­ty will pro­vide researchers with the knowl­edge foun­da­tion to uncov­er their role in devel­op­men­tal brain dis­or­ders. In the long term, clar­i­fy­ing the con­nec­tion between brain struc­ture and func­tion may lead to ear­ly diag­nos­tic tools for brain dis­eases … researchers like us have our work cut out for us as we con­tin­ue try­ing to deci­pher the mys­tery of the most com­plex known struc­ture in the universe.”

#5. Pear Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $175M and goes pub­lic via SPAC deal rais­ing the pro­file of pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal therapeutics

The Times They Are a‑Changin’ …

#6. Sol­era Health includes Gin­ger and eMind­ful to expand dig­i­tal men­tal health­care platform

“eMind­ful and Gin­ger join Solera’s curat­ed Men­tal and Behav­ioral Health Net­work, which already includ­ed lead­ing med­i­ta­tion, mind­ful­ness, and men­tal train­ing app, Head­space. Sol­era con­tin­ues to expand its suite of whole-per­son health solu­tions to sup­port health jour­neys across acu­ity lev­els and clin­i­cal personas.”

And here are two old­er posts which have remained among our Most Read in 2021:

#7. Eight Tips To Remem­ber What You Read

“Despite tele­vi­sion, cell phones, and Twit­ter, tra­di­tion­al read­ing is still an impor­tant skill. Whether it is school text­books, mag­a­zines, or reg­u­lar books, peo­ple still read, though not as much as they used to. One rea­son that many peo­ple don’t read much is that they don’t read well. For them, it is slow, hard work and they don’t remem­ber as much as they should … I sum­ma­rize below what I think it takes to read with good speed and comprehension.”

#8. Test your Brain with these 10 Opti­cal Illusions

One way to learn more about our visu­al sys­tem is to look at how we can trick it … give these ten illu­sions a try!

Wish­ing you and yours a Healthy & Pros­per­ous 2022,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

Trend: Harnessing digital tech to improve mental health and wellness

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From mind­ful­ness apps to vir­tu­al ther­a­py ses­sions, dig­i­tal tools offer instant access to well­ness resources (The Globe and Mail):

In 2015, Brie Code was work­ing at lead­ing video game com­pa­ny Ubisoft as lead arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram­mer when she real­ized that many peo­ple she knew – about half, by her esti­ma­tion – found video games bor­ing. [Read more…] about Trend: Har­ness­ing dig­i­tal tech to improve men­tal health and wellness

New book shares science and techniques to breathe better and promote calmness not anxiety

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Scrolling social media, amid fran­tic elec­tion-relat­ed posts and news of esca­lat­ing COVID-19 cas­es, you may have come across a friend remind­ing every­one to just breathe.

But can just-breath­ing real­ly make a difference?

In his new book Breath: The New Sci­ence of a Lost Art, jour­nal­ist James Nestor argues that mod­ern humans have become pret­ty bad at this most basic act of liv­ing. We breathe through our mouths and into our chests, and we do it way too fast. There’s even a phe­nom­e­non called “email apnea,” where mul­ti­task­ing office work­ers breathe irreg­u­lar­ly and shal­low­ly, or even hold their breath, for half a minute or more while glued to their devices.

Besides all the wor­ri­some health prob­lems this may cause—detailed point­ed­ly in Nestor’s book—our inep­ti­tude at breath­ing may have anoth­er big con­se­quence: con­tribut­ing to our anx­i­ety and oth­er men­tal health prob­lems. [Read more…] about New book shares sci­ence and tech­niques to breathe bet­ter and pro­mote calm­ness not anxiety

On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above.

#1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” – Sil­via Rodriguez-Roza­da, Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Ham­burg. Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a century

#2. One more rea­son why life­long learn­ing mat­ters: Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

#3. It’s Fri­day; per­fect time to make some fun and healthy week­end plans: How feel­ing awe in nature can spur men­tal well-being and per­son­al growth

#4. Not a bad idea either: On cut­ting “emp­ty brain calo­ries” by read­ing a book instead of social media

#5. “…humil­i­ty helps peo­ple let go of defen­sive­ness, take in infor­ma­tion that chal­lenges their polit­i­cal views, and see the human­i­ty in peo­ple on the oth­er side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Though it’s not always easy to embrace—especially for those who wrong­ful­ly equate it with weak­ness or a lack of conviction—humility may be what we des­per­ate­ly need right now in the Unit­ed States.” On per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tive bias and cul­ti­vat­ing humil­i­ty ahead of next week’s vote

#6. “When it feels like the world is crash­ing down around them, giv­ing young peo­ple a moment to feel, express, and receive grat­i­tude can help—and that in itself is some­thing to be grate­ful for.” Study: A com­bined teach­ing + app grat­i­tude pro­gram helps ado­les­cents address anx­i­ety and improve men­tal health

#7. To hon­or ADHD Aware­ness Month, let’s address this most impor­tant ques­tion: What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

#8. Debate: Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harm­ful? Two new stud­ies answer the ques­tion in appar­ent­ly oppo­site but actu­al­ly quite com­ple­men­tary ways.

#9. Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhance­ment” sup­ple­ments in the US found both to a) con­tain mul­ti­ple unap­proved drugs and b) lack some ingre­di­ents list­ed on the label. Your take?

#10. “…new study fund­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health that aims to recruit 30,000 vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in a mem­o­ry train­ing study that com­pares mul­ti­ple approach­es to train work­ing mem­o­ry”: Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

#11. “Vir­tu­al real­i­ty is a promis­ing skills-based behav­ioral med­i­cine that has been shown to have high patient engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion,” said Beth Dar­nall, PhD, AppliedVR’s chief sci­ence advi­sor. “How­ev­er, chron­ic pain patients to date have had very lim­it­ed access to it, so we’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with the FDA to devel­op our plat­form and get it into the mar­ket faster.” The FDA clears Applied­VR head­set to help treat fibromyal­gia and chron­ic pain

#12. “Hav­ing run a media com­pa­ny in a tough mar­ket with a young, mil­len­ni­al work­force, we wit­nessed first-hand how there was a com­plete lack of invest­ment in help­ing this gen­er­a­tion with their men­tal health in a way that they’re used to: a com­mu­ni­ty prod­uct that is mobile-first and video-led. We want to make the world a hap­pi­er place by mak­ing work­ing on your men­tal health as nor­mal as going to the gym.” — Adnan Ebrahim, co-founder and CEO of Mind­Labs. What will the ‘Pelo­ton for men­tal health’ look like five years from now? And, who will devel­op it?

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy November,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Debate: Can mindfulness and meditation be harmful?

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Yes (in per­haps 8% of indi­vid­u­als). Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harm­ful? (Sci­ence Focus):

Med­i­ta­tion has escaped both the reli­gious cells of monks and nuns and the labs of sci­en­tists. An increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple are using med­i­ta­tion apps to deal with men­tal health prob­lems, such as depres­sion and anx­i­ety. Although there is no clear esti­mate of how many peo­ple are prac­tis­ing med­i­ta­tion, last year one sin­gle app had close to 40 mil­lion down­loads. [Read more…] about Debate: Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harmful?

Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study:

#1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a placebo

#2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found to increase AD risk in the most com­pre­hen­sive evi­dence review to date,

#3. “The health­i­est peo­ple are the ones who grow with age and expe­ri­ence; even in times of trou­ble like these.” — Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, MD, Pres­i­dent of the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion. On Stress, Yoga Med­i­ta­tion, and The Evo­lu­tion Revolution

#4. “Accep­tance that Alzheimer’s dis­ease is a lifestyle dis­ease, lit­tle dif­fer­ent from oth­er age-relat­ed dis­eases, that is the sum of a life­time is the most impor­tant break­through of the decade.” — George Per­ry, PhD, Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. High­er body mass index (BMI) linked to low­er blood sup­ply to the brain in large neu­roimag­ing study

#5. “Atten­tion is a scarce resource. Think about your atten­tion­al focus as the beam of a light. If the light is on an object it can­not be on oth­er objects at the same time with the same inten­si­ty … Although we typ­i­cal­ly have the feel­ing that mul­ti­task­ing saves us time, it is often not the case.” Sim­ple, quick brain teas­er to test the lim­its of multitasking

#6. If it appears to rotate, RT ? Fun opti­cal illu­sion to tease your mind

#7. Every cloud has a sil­ver lin­ing: How and when will the telemed­i­cine surge reach men­tal healthcare?

#8. Not a minute too soon: Mag­el­lan Health is test­ing biofeed­back videogame Might­i­er to help chil­dren bet­ter self-reg­u­late stress

#9. “In a time when emo­tions like stress, anx­i­ety, bore­dom, and anger are hard to avoid, a new study sug­gests that a par­tic­u­lar med­i­ta­tion prac­tice can help us face them.” Study: Med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, both for­mal and infor­mal, helps devel­op equa­nim­i­ty over time

#10. Ever since dis­cov­er­ing Bar­bara Arrow­smith-Young’s life tra­jec­to­ry via Nor­main Doidge’s fan­tas­tic book The Brain That Changes Itself, we have been impressed by her cre­ativ­i­ty, sta­mi­na and courage. Com­ing soon: Vir­tu­al World Tour at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, edu­ca­tion and learn­ing difficulties

#11. “Neur­al sig­nals will be used to devel­op algo­rithms that will help researchers deter­mine the opti­mal brain state under which indi­vid­u­als can receive infor­ma­tion. From there, the team will deter­mine the most effec­tive means of enhanc­ing the sub­jects’ abil­i­ty to intake and process infor­ma­tion. This could range from non-inva­sive neuromodulation—or brain stimulation—techniques to the use of aug­ment­ed real­i­ty to alter per­ceived envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.” Air Force announces research plat­form to har­ness closed-loop neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and accel­er­ate learn­ing “on the fly”

#12. Good to hear that “ensur­ing the pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty of study par­tic­i­pants’ data is a high pri­or­i­ty for both UCLA and Apple. UCLA will process and main­tain study data in a secure envi­ron­ment … UCLA and Apple will ana­lyze the data only after they are cod­ed and stripped of names and oth­er con­tact infor­ma­tion.” UCLA launch­es major men­tal health study col­lect­ing & ana­lyz­ing data from Apple wear­ables to bet­ter under­stand depres­sion and anxiety

#13. Flex­i­bil­i­ty is good except when it isn’t: Study finds how sci­en­tists can reach dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions ana­lyz­ing the same brain scans

#14. “I have so much to accom­plish today that I must med­i­tate for two hours instead of one” — Gand­hi, as quot­ed in Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy September,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on behalf of the Sharp­Brains Team