Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

mental health

UK report identifies opportunities and gaps for digital tech to improve, not harm, mental health

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Gov­ern­ment urged to invest in digi­ti­sa­tion of men­tal health ser­vices (Med-Tech News):

The Men­tal Health Tech Land­scape Review, released today by Future Care Cap­i­tal (FCC), not only rec­om­mends a range of mea­sures to enable high­er qual­i­ty care through the use of tech­nol­o­gy, but it also shows that there is poten­tial for the devel­op­ment of a wider range of dif­fer­ent types of tech­nol­o­gy solu­tion (as) there is the dan­ger of men­tal health­care “falling through the gaps”. [Read more…] about UK report iden­ti­fies oppor­tu­ni­ties and gaps for dig­i­tal tech to improve, not harm, men­tal health

The neuroscience behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

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With COVID-19 vac­cines work­ing and restric­tions lift­ing across the coun­try, it’s final­ly time for those now vac­ci­nat­ed who’ve been hun­kered down at home to ditch the sweat­pants and reemerge from their Net­flix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your for­mer social life. [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

The explosion of mental health apps raises substantial opportunities–and tough questions

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In the eyes of the tech indus­try, men­tal health treat­ment is an area ripe for disruption.

In any giv­en year, 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. expe­ri­ence a form of men­tal ill­ness, accord­ing to fed­er­al esti­mates. And research indi­cates only about half of them receive treat­ment in a sys­tem that is under­staffed and ill dis­trib­uted to meet demand.

For tech star­tups look­ing to cash in on unmet need, that trans­lates into more than 50 mil­lion poten­tial cus­tomers. [Read more…] about The explo­sion of men­tal health apps rais­es sub­stan­tial opportunities–and tough questions

Ten days left to submit proposals to the Wellcome Trust for Workplace Mental Health 2021

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Dear Col­leagues,

Well­come are delight­ed to announce the launch of our Work­place Men­tal Health 2021 Request for Pro­pos­als.

Busi­ness­es all over the world are increas­ing­ly think­ing about how they can most effec­tive­ly sup­port the men­tal health of their staff, even more so in light of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, despite grow­ing inter­est and invest­ment in work­place men­tal health, we still have so much to learn about what works. [Read more…] about Ten days left to sub­mit pro­pos­als to the Well­come Trust for Work­place Men­tal Health 2021

Don’t worry, be happy: How excessive worrying may influence the rate of neurodegeneration

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Wor­ry­ing and the Aging Brain (Dana Foundation):

Over the past decade, sci­en­tists and clin­i­cians have not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tion between com­mon men­tal health con­di­tions and accel­er­at­ed brain aging—the changes to brain struc­ture, phys­i­ol­o­gy, and func­tion that are thought to lead to lat­er cog­ni­tive decline. Both depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, for exam­ple, are strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with the devel­op­ment of demen­tias includ­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease lat­er in life, yet it has been unclear why. Neu­ro­sci­en­tists and geron­tol­o­gists around the globe have dili­gent­ly worked to inves­ti­gate which par­tic­u­lar symp­toms might con­tribute to age-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline. [Read more…] about Don’t wor­ry, be hap­py: How exces­sive wor­ry­ing may influ­ence the rate of neurodegeneration

On building better brains at any age, treating Depression vs. Dementia, emerging neurotechnologies, psychedelics, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eleven new research find­ings and inno­v­a­tive resources for life­long cog­ni­tive and brain health.

#1. Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

#2. Either way, the ear­li­er the bet­ter, but it’s nev­er too late: New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

#3. “If I were a car­di­ol­o­gist eval­u­at­ing a patient’s chest pain, for instance, I would speak with the patient, but then I would lis­ten to their heart and mea­sure their pulse and blood pres­sure. I might order an elec­tro­car­dio­gram or a car­diac stress test, tools that weren’t avail­able a cen­tu­ry ago. Because I’m a psy­chi­a­trist, how­ev­er, I eval­u­ate patients in pre­cise­ly the same way that my pre­de­ces­sors did in 1920…” Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry

#4. Very time­ly effort by Well­come in the UK: Com­pre­hen­sive research review iden­ti­fies most promis­ing inter­ven­tions to boost work­place men­tal health

#5. “As we enter the sec­ond year of the pan­dem­ic, so many peo­ple are strug­gling and seek­ing men­tal health sup­port. Wysa is an exam­ple of how tech­nol­o­gy is help­ing mil­lions of peo­ple access every­day men­tal health sup­port and self-care tools with­out being gat­ed by a clin­i­cal diag­no­sis.” — Dr. Pankaj Jeth­wani, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent at W Health Ven­tures. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

#6. Study: Social media and gen­er­al tech engage­ment not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

#7. Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treat­ments. A nice way to cel­e­brate Akil­i’s 10th anniver­sary … they are tar­get­ing ADHD first (now kids, lat­er teens and adults), to be fol­lowed by treat­ments for a range of cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders relat­ed to depres­sion, Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis, Autism, “Covid-Fog” and more.

#8. Study: High­er men­tal well­be­ing (in 2016) seen to low­er health­care costs (in 2017). We still have time to invest in pub­lic men­tal well­be­ing in 2021.

#9. Teladoc Health, hav­ing acquired Livon­go and myS­trength, launch­es inte­grat­ed men­tal health ser­vice for the work­place. “The announce­ment comes as more than half of peo­ple with men­tal health con­cerns report that they do not know where to start when get­ting care, high­light­ing the impor­tance of the dig­i­tal front door myS­trength Com­plete will pro­vide…” This is indeed a very com­mon pain point accord­ing to our own research, so good to see the quite com­pre­hen­sive & per­son­al­ized approach.

#10. Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ — Fas­ci­nat­ing to see the major role of the Demen­tia Dis­cov­ery Fund, in a bid to accel­er­ate clin­i­cal tri­als and poten­tial therapies.

#11. Last but not least, a very promis­ing clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion of psy­che­delics: Study finds MDMA-assist­ed ther­a­py to be safe and high­ly effec­tive to treat severe PTSD. “The Nature authors spec­u­late that MDMA-assist­ed ses­sions pro­duce a “win­dow of tol­er­ance,” in which patients are able to revis­it trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries, with less shame and anger, and with­out being over­whelmed by PTSD symptoms.”

Wish­ing you a healthy Memo­r­i­al Week­end and month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team