On Mental Health and the advent of Digital Phenotyping

By SharpBrains | December 4, 2018

___ Build­ing the Ther­mome­ter for Men­tal Health (The Dana Foun­da­tion): “Imag­ine that you vis­it your physi­cian com­plain­ing of a fever and, rather than tak­ing out a ther­mome­ter, they begin hov­er­ing their “edu­cat­ed hands” over you. Grad­u­al­ly, they press down against your arm to gain a full impres­sion of your skin’s tem­per­a­ture and the “deep­er seated…

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Update: Large study highlights the limited role of genetics in mental health and the importance of effective early interventions

By SharpBrains | November 30, 2018

___ Dear read­er, Time for Sharp­Brains month­ly e‑newsletter, dis­cussing the lat­est inno­va­tions for brain health and men­tal health, and open­ing in this occa­sion with a fas­ci­nat­ing study track­ing 2,232 twins over 10+ years. New research: Large study with twins high­lights the lim­it­ed role of genet­ics in men­tal health and the impor­tance of effec­tive ear­ly inter­ven­tions for ADHD How…

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Five reasons to welcome Digital Mental Health innovations

By SharpBrains | November 20, 2018

___ Map­ping out the Men­tal Health start­up ecosys­tem (Medi­um): “Today, 1 in 5 peo­ple have a diag­nos­able men­tal ill­ness, and 1 in 20 peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ty lead­ing their every­day life due to men­tal ill­ness. How­ev­er before even talk­ing about the preva­lence of the issue?…one must real­ize how inef­fec­tive the cur­rent infra­struc­ture is. Here are some…

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What will neurotechnology look like just one or two decades ahead?

By SharpBrains | November 13, 2018

___ Will it be about a new gen­er­a­tion of portable brain scan­ners that can sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er the price of research, like the one being devel­oped by researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham and Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don in the UK? Or will it be about sophis­ti­cat­ed neur­al inter­faces, like the ones the US mil­i­tary is work­ing on, to change the…

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Mixed reactions on the development of digital biomarkers and growth of Mindstrong Health

By SharpBrains | November 12, 2018

___ (More on the pos­i­tive side, at MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review) The smart­phone app that can tell you’re depressed before you know it your­self: “There are about 45 mil­lion peo­ple in the US alone with a men­tal ill­ness, and those ill­ness­es and their cours­es of treat­ment can vary tremen­dous­ly. But there is some­thing most of those people…

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Update: Only 5% of US children ages 8–11 follow guidelines recommended for brain development

By SharpBrains | October 31, 2018

___ Dear read­er, Time for Sharp­Brains month­ly e‑newsletter, dis­cussing the lat­est inno­va­tions for brain health and men­tal health, and open­ing in this occa­sion with an impor­tant wake-up call. New research: Only 5% of US chil­dren ages 8–11 fol­low screen time, sleep and exer­cise guide­lines rec­om­mend­ed for brain devel­op­ment Neu­ro­feed­back or med­ica­tion to treat ADHD? New study reinforces…

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