On cognitive training, muscle mass, neurostimulation, brain teasers, apps, and more

By SharpBrains | October 31, 2022

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & inno­va­tion news and a few fun teasers to test your work­ing mem­o­ry. #1. Study: Build­ing mus­cle mass helps delay cog­ni­tive decline beyond the val­ue of exer­cise itself “Teas­ing out exact­ly how mus­cle helps the brain remains a chal­lenge. There are plen­ty of indirect…

Read More

Clinicians and academics should engage users when reviewing mental health apps, study finds

By SharpBrains | October 3, 2022

Study: Pro­fes­sion­al, con­sumer opin­ions dif­fer on men­tal health app qual­i­ty (Mobi­Health News): Researchers found low agree­ment between pro­fes­sion­als’ and con­sumers’ reviews of men­tal health apps. The study, pub­lished in JMIR, assessed 11 men­tal health apps using web sur­veys admin­is­tered between Decem­ber 2020 and April 2021. The apps assessed includ­ed Breethe, Calm, Head­space, Insight Timer Meditation,…

Read More

“Digital therapeutics” vs. “Mental health apps”: A growing debate on standards, regulation and efficacy

By SharpBrains | May 9, 2022

The effi­ca­cy of Men­tal Health Apps (phar­mafo­rum): In Jan­u­ary, PLOS Dig­i­tal Health pub­lished a study which claimed that there’s “sparse” data to sup­port the effi­ca­cy of most men­tal health apps. In their meta-ana­ly­­sis of pub­lished stud­ies, the authors found uni­ver­sal defi­cien­cies and con­clud­ed that there’s no con­vinc­ing evi­dence that app-based inter­ven­tions deliv­er mean­ing­ful out­comes. Without…

Read More

Consumer Reports finds unclear, questionable privacy practices and policies among popular mental health apps

By SharpBrains | March 4, 2021

Men­tal Health Apps Aren’t All As Pri­vate As You May Think (Con­sumer Reports): Type “men­tal health” or a con­di­tion such as anx­i­ety or depres­sion into an app store search bar, and you can end up scrolling through end­less screens of options. As a recent Con­sumer Reports inves­ti­ga­tion has found, these apps take wide­ly var­ied approaches…

Read More

Mobile cognitive therapies gain traction as first-line mental health intervention

By SharpBrains | September 8, 2015

Men­tal health apps let you access ther­a­py from your smart­phone (New Sci­en­tist): “Lie down any­where that suits: the world is now your therapist’s couch. A wide range of apps now deliv­er men­­tal-health care straight to your smart­phone. With PTSD Coach, users can dis­creet­ly screen them­selves and learn more about the dis­or­der. Mood­notes keeps track of

Read More