Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

mental health

Volunteering can not only strengthen your community but boost your mental well-being by the equivalent of $1,100

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The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has led to the prac­tice of social dis­tanc­ing, cre­at­ing feel­ings of stress and iso­la­tion in many of us. Some groups have been hit par­tic­u­lar­ly hard, includ­ing the elder­ly, par­ents jug­gling work and child care, and peo­ple who have lost their jobs. Against this back­drop, many peo­ple have turned to vol­un­teer­ing to help make a dif­fer­ence, even at a dis­tance.

New research sug­gests that vol­un­teers aren’t just help­ing the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. Peo­ple who vol­un­teer actu­al­ly expe­ri­ence a boost in their men­tal health—good news at a time when [Read more…] about Vol­un­teer­ing can not only strength­en your com­mu­ni­ty but boost your men­tal well-being by the equiv­a­lent of $1,100

Startup Big Health raises $39M to universalize access to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and poor sleep

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Big Health Hones Dig­i­tal Men­tal Health Ther­a­py With $39M Series B (Crunch­base):

“Start­up Big Health believes indi­vid­u­als can improve their men­tal health through its tech­nol­o­gy that focus­es on cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py ver­sus med­ica­tion or the help of human ther­a­pists.

On Thurs­day it raised $39 mil­lion in a Series B financ­ing to advance that objec­tive.

[Read more…] about Start­up Big Health rais­es $39M to uni­ver­sal­ize access to cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) for anx­i­ety and poor sleep

Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health.

#1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign of Alzheimer’s dis­ease), and had more amy­loid and tau deposits in their brain … There’s increas­ing evi­dence that chron­ic stress is both harm­ful to your body – and your brain. But more research is need­ed to under­stand this link.” Repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing may increase (or per­haps be caused by) cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s pathol­o­gy

#2. “…even sim­ple cog­ni­tive process­es like mak­ing a shop­ping list now require more brain­pow­er. “Now, rather than think­ing, ‘I’ll just run to the store’, you’re think­ing about what you need, what stores are open and whether it’ll be safe to go there. Let’s say your brain can do four tasks at once. Now all of a sud­den there are 10, and you can’t do any of them” … reboot­ing your work­ing mem­o­ry may also mean cut­ting down on your news con­sump­tion and con­sid­er­ing a break from social media. But the most effec­tive thing to do might sim­ply be to con­vince your­self it’s OK to be strug­gling.” Why stress reg­u­la­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry are core build­ing blocks of life­long resilience

#3. Ten years from now, will we see DSM‑6 or Some­thing Much Bet­ter (SMB)-1? The way we approach Men­tal Health today is bro­ken beyond repair. The ques­tion is, what comes next, and how fast can we get there?

#4. Now, please draw the let­ter J in your mind. Then, draw the let­ter D. Turn it 90 degrees to the left and put it in top of the J. What does this shape resem­ble? Enjoy these three quick brain teasers to exer­cise your work­ing mem­o­ry

#5. “Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy can help read­ers make sense of the world. Rather than lim­it­ing read­ers’ capac­i­ty to deal with real­i­ty, expo­sure to out­side-the-box cre­ative sto­ries may expand their abil­i­ty to engage real­i­ty based on sci­ence … With increas­ing rates of anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and men­tal health issues for youth in the past two decades, it may be the case that young peo­ple, no dif­fer­ent from Amer­i­can soci­ety gen­er­al­ly, are suf­fer­ing from real­i­ty over­load.” — Esther L. Jones, Ph.D Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion can help chil­dren build crit­i­cal think­ing and resilience

#6. “For decades, use of biofeed­back to help suf­fer­ers of anx­i­ety, among oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions, has large­ly been lim­it­ed to clin­i­cal set­tings with expensive—and some­what tedious—medical equip­ment. Now, with an assist from devel­op­ers of vir­tu­al-real­i­ty games, effec­tive ther­a­peu­tic biofeed­back is becom­ing more afford­able, acces­si­ble and engag­ing.” Vir­tu­al-real­i­ty gam­ing + afford­able biofeed­back = Anx­i­ety ther­a­py for all?

#7. Now comes the real chal­lenge: get­ting doc­tors to pre­scribe it, insur­ers to pay for it, kids to use it and hope­ful­ly see sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in dai­ly life. FDA clears first videogame to be pre­scribed to kids with ADHD: Endeav­or­Rx by Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs

#8. Hope you enjoy this overview by Dr. Ricar­do Gil-da-Cos­ta at Neu­ro­verse and our very own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Explore The State of Non­in­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy in 37 min­utes and 1 image

#9. Here with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Mara Dierssen, in Span­ish: Cómo min­i­mizar el impacto del Covid-19 en nue­stro cere­bro

#10. Ignor­ing prob­lems does­n’t typ­i­cal­ly solve them — good to see seri­ous attempts to under­stand, detect and address chemo brain. Grow­ing research shows how two of the major can­cer treat­ments, radi­a­tion and chemother­a­py, can lead to long-term cog­ni­tive impair­ment

#11. “… COVID-19 may lead to any­where from 27,644 to 154,037 addi­tion­al U.S. deaths of despair, as mass unem­ploy­ment, social iso­la­tion, depres­sion and anx­i­ety dri­ve increas­es in sui­cides and drug over­dos­es.” Time to reimag­ine brain & mind care: Four imme­di­ate pri­or­i­ties to flat­ten the men­tal dis­tress curve

#12. Mov­ing beyond Either/ Or Think­ing: Anti­de­pres­sant vor­tiox­e­tine com­bined with cog­ni­tive train­ing may help delay cog­ni­tive decline

#13. Not the worst week to leave Earth, but still plen­ty of men­tal health chal­lenges in space. Request for pro­pos­als to help astro­nauts com­bat behav­ioral health chal­lenges such as stress and iso­la­tion

 

Have a good and safe sum­mer,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Four immediate priorities to flatten the mental distress curve

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The men­tal health cri­sis trig­gered by COVID-19 is esca­lat­ing rapid­ly. One exam­ple: When com­pared to a 2018 sur­vey, U.S. adults are now eight times more like­ly to meet the cri­te­ria for seri­ous men­tal dis­tress. One-third of Amer­i­cans report clin­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant symp­toms of anx­i­ety or clin­i­cal depres­sion, accord­ing to a late May 2020 release of Cen­sus Bureau data.

While all pop­u­la­tion groups are affect­ed, this cri­sis is espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult for stu­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly those pushed off col­lege cam­pus­es and now fac­ing eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty; adults with chil­dren at home, strug­gling to jug­gle work and home-school­ing; and front-line health care work­ers, risk­ing their lives to save oth­ers. [Read more…] about Four imme­di­ate pri­or­i­ties to flat­ten the men­tal dis­tress curve

Reading science fiction can help children build critical thinking and resilience

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Young peo­ple who are hooked on watch­ing fan­ta­sy or read­ing sci­ence fic­tion may be on to some­thing. Con­trary to a com­mon mis­per­cep­tion that read­ing this genre is an unwor­thy prac­tice, read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy may help young peo­ple cope, espe­cial­ly with the stress and anx­i­ety of liv­ing through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

I am a pro­fes­sor with research inter­ests in the social, eth­i­cal and polit­i­cal mes­sages in sci­ence fic­tion. In my book [Read more…] about Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion can help chil­dren build crit­i­cal think­ing and resilience

Update: The latest research and noninvasive neurotechnologies for brain health and mental fitness

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter!

1. Food for (non­par­ti­san) Thought: Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test?

2. A school psy­chol­o­gist shares good tips to sup­port our kids and, yes, man­age our own stress. Three Ss to reduce the stress of “home­school­ing” our kids: Sim­pli­fy, Struc­ture, Sup­port.

3. Wow. Mind­strong Health rais­es $100M to trans­form how we mea­sure and pro­mote men­tal health.

4. Great part­ner­ship! Kaiser Per­ma­nente offers Calm men­tal fit­ness app at no cost to mil­lions of mem­bers.

5. “Just as you can’t self-intro­spect to deter­mine your cho­les­terol, much of the high­est-val­ue infor­ma­tion about our­selves and each oth­er sits out­side our con­scious aware­ness.” — Bryan John­son, Founder and CEO of Ker­nel, as Ker­nel launch­es Neu­ro­science as a Ser­vice (NaaS) built on non-inva­sive brain record­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

6. Fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tion on how and why “Prac­tice actu­al­ly changes the phys­i­cal­i­ty of your brain” — Q&A with Rick Han­son on Neu­rod­har­ma, brain sci­ence, per­son­al prac­tice and well-being

7. May this trend con­tin­ue (and for bet­ter rea­sons): Grow­ing inter­est in dig­i­tal men­tal health among insur­ers and med­ical care providers.

8. Par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing for mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, ocu­lar hyper­ten­sion, dia­betes, and trau­mat­ic brain injury: Portable brain assess­ment device by Head­safe secures 510(k) FDA clear­ance.

9. May a lim­er­ick a day keep the neu­rol­o­gist away?

10. If not a lim­er­ick, per­haps a few brain teasers. Say the months of the year in alpha­bet­i­cal order. Too easy? Well, try doing so back­wards, in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order. Five quick brain teasers to flex those Atten­tion and Work­ing Mem­o­ry men­tal mus­cles

11. You have been invit­ed to a fundrais­ing gala at your old col­lege (via Zoom of course) and decide that this black-tie event demands a super white Ital­ian shirt, like the one you bought years ago for your wed­ding. Ready for some quick math? Try this Brain Teas­er: What shirt size you need?

Have a great month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team