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“We need people-centered wellness solutions that integrate brain health factors” — Charlie Hartwell, Operating Partner at the Bridge Builders Collaborative

August 21, 2017 by Alvaro Fernandez

Ques­tion: Char­lie, please share 1–2 major brain health needs you observe right now whose solu­tion demands a cre­ative and sig­nif­i­cant tech-enabled innovation.

Answer: I’d encour­age peo­ple to remem­ber that Brain Health is just part of over­all Whole Per­son Health.  Brain health solu­tions may reduce some dis­ease symp­toms but not help achieve actu­al well­ness.  We need peo­ple-cen­tered well­ness solu­tions that inte­grate brain health factors.

What advice would you give an entre­pre­neur launch­ing an inno­va­tion to address that?

Think hard about the way to grow and through what dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel you want to bring your solu­tion. No dis­tri­b­u­tion, no innovation.

– Char­lie Hartwell is the Oper­at­ing Part­ner at the Bridge Builders Col­lab­o­ra­tive, help­ing fund and sup­port the visions of social entre­pre­neurs build­ing bridges in the mind train­ing space. Char­lie is a Har­vard Busi­ness School grad­u­ate who has led, found­ed, run and worked in orga­ni­za­tions in 16 dif­fer­ent indus­tries. He will serve as a Judge in the first Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test host­ed by the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017).

– Brain­no­va­tions Judg­ing Panel

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain-health, disease, distribution channel, health, mind training, wellness

Survey of key scientific, technological and investment trends revolutionizing Brain Health in our Digital Age

January 23, 2017 by Apoorv Mathur

—–

Last year I got very inter­est­ed in the func­tion­ing of the human brain and the sci­ence behind mind­ful­ness and learn­ing [1], so was quite excit­ed  to attend the Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit [2] in Decem­ber, indulging in the lat­est trends in applied neu­ro­science and dig­i­tal innovation.

The Sum­mit focused on the theme of rein­vent­ing brain health in the dig­i­tal age, and brought togeth­er lead­ing researchers, entre­pre­neurs, financiers and pol­i­cy­mak­ers pas­sion­ate with the mis­sion of mov­ing neu­ro­science and cog­ni­tive research from sci­ence labs towards appli­ca­tions in Health, Well­ness and Edu­ca­tion. Here’s a sum­ma­ry of the many things I dis­cov­ered. [Read more…] about Sur­vey of key sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and invest­ment trends rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Brain Health in our Dig­i­tal Age

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: addiction, adhd, aging, Akili Interactive Labs, anxiety, Applied Neuroscience, autism. Autism Spectrum disorder, Baycrest, Behavior Imaging Solutions, Big-Pharma, blood-flow, Brain-health, brain-injury, Bridge Builders Collaborative, CC-ABHI, Claritas, Cogito, Cogniciti, cognitive, cognitive disabilities, cognitive therapeutics, cognitive-decline, Cognitive-functions, Cognitive-impairment, concussions, dementia, depression, digital, digital age, digital brain health, digital health, digital innovation, eMindful, entrepreneurs, FDA-approved, Fourth Industrial Revolution, frontal-lobes, gamification, Happify, Headspace, human-brain, Interaxon, investors, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Jazz Ventures, Johnson & Johnson, Learning, lifespan, McKesson, Mental-Health, Merck, Merck Ventures, mind training, mindfulness, MindMaze, NIMH, OCD, Pear Therapeutics, PTSD, SBIR, sharpbrains, Stress, STTR, substance-abuse, UT-Dallas, virtual-reality, World-Economic-Forum, Xhale

Ten Important Signals to help reinvent Brain Health in the Digital Age & serve the needs of an Aging Population

December 21, 2016 by Alvaro Fernandez

brain-health-reimagined—–

Dear sharp reader,

It’s been a busy year.

To sum­ma­rize where we are, and to bet­ter pre­pare for the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges in the year ahead, let’s step back for a minute.

Let’s take a look at the big pic­ture pre­sent­ed in the arti­cle Both Impor­tant and Urgent: Get­ting ready to serve the Cog­ni­tive & Brain Health needs of an Aging Pop­u­la­tion by an esteemed par­tic­i­pant in the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit held ear­li­er this month:

“The urgency to devel­op inno­v­a­tive new tech­nolo­gies that will sup­port brain health is close­ly linked to the fact that a grow­ing pro­por­tion of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion is liv­ing longer than at any oth­er time in his­to­ry. As this pop­u­la­tion ages, the need to main­tain brain health and/or man­age declin­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion will have far-reach­ing impact both social­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly.” — David Stoller @ CC-ABHI.

Good news is, sci­en­tists, tech­nol­o­gists and entre­pre­neurs are work­ing hard on this world­wide, as evi­denced by the wealth of insights and ini­tia­tives dis­cussed by 200+ par­tic­i­pants in 15 coun­tries dur­ing the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 6–8th).

The list of insights and ini­tia­tives com­ing from the 3‑day event is too long to detail (I encour­age you to access the slid­edecks and record­ings here); let me just high­light Ten Impor­tant Sig­nals to help Rein­vent Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age we live in:

  1. “Our health starts and ends with brain health,” as Dr. San­dra Bond Chap­man, Founder and Chief Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Brain­Health at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Dal­las, remind­ed us.
  2. “There is too lit­tle wis­dom in brain health (as prac­ticed today),” cau­tioned Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty.
  3. The Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy (AACN) announced a new Dis­rup­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Ini­tia­tive focused on “assess­ment and/or inter­ven­tion-pre­ven­tion-improve­ment of cog­ni­tive func­tions, acces­si­ble to the entire population.”
  4. Both the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH) and the Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Inno­va­tion (CC-ABHI) shared sub­stan­tial fund­ing pro­grams to help start-ups access seed cap­i­tal to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize evi­dence-based dig­i­tal brain health platforms.
  5. Ven­ture investors see a bur­geon­ing land­scape and future of the mind train­ing space.
  6. Many pio­neers are work­ing on ways to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for good, via cog­ni­tive assess­ments and ther­a­pies (Brain­HQ, Cog­niFit, Akili, Click Ther­a­peu­tics, Cog­nic­i­ti, SBT Group) mind­ful­ness apps (Clar­i­tas Mind­sciences), EEG (Emo­tiv) and vir­tu­al real­i­ty (Mind­Maze).
  7. A grow­ing num­ber of phar­ma com­pa­nies, from Mer­ck to Janssen, are invest­ing in dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics by devel­op­ing tools, licens­ing them, even invest­ing in start-ups in the space.
  8. “Clin­i­cal­ly-guid­ed” video cap­ture of behav­ior can aid in diag­no­sis…behav­ior imag­ing, aug­ment­ed by deep learn­ing, will lead to real pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, thanks to firms like Behav­ior Imag­ing Solu­tions, Myn­dY­ou, Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, and more.
  9. Old and new play­ers in edu­ca­tion–Pear­son, ETS, UC Berke­ley, the Arrow­smith School– are devel­op­ing dig­i­tal and in-per­son pro­grams to pro­mote life­long brain development.
  10. The Coach­es and Psy­chol­o­gists of the Future–exem­pli­fied by the Insti­tute of Coach­ing, The Synapse Sys­tem, the new Wat­son Cen­tre for Brain Health–are already aug­ment­ing their prac­tices with lat­est brain & cog­ni­tion find­ings and dig­i­tal neurotechnologies.

As you can see, a lot is hap­pen­ing. And a lot more will hap­pen in 2017.

I’d like to thank all Sum­mit Speak­ers and Spon­sors–we could­n’t do it with­out you– and also every sharp read­er for your con­tin­ued atten­tion and support.

On behalf of the Sharp­Brains team and com­mu­ni­ty, Hap­py Hol­i­days and Pros­per­ous New Year!

 

PS1: If you are still look­ing for gifts…please con­sid­er giv­ing a copy of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance, rec­om­mend­ed by many dur­ing the Sum­mit as a cru­cial book to help edu­cate pro­fes­sion­als and the wider public.

PS2: You can access all Sum­mit slid­edecks and record­ings here (slid­edecks are free; record­ings require reg­is­tra­tion, and we high­ly rec­om­mend them for peo­ple with a pro­fes­sion­al inter­est in the area)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aging, Brain-health, cognitive, cognitive therapies, cognitive-assessment, digital age, mind training, neuroplasticity, Neuropsychology

The latest from Bridge Builders Collaborative, the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology and the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation

December 20, 2016 by SharpBrains

Expo Day: Bridge Builders Col­lab­o­ra­tive, Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy, and Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Inno­va­tion from Sharp­Brains

Dur­ing Expo Day select­ed Sum­mit Part­ners and Spon­sors show­cased their lat­est ini­tia­tives and solutions.

  • Char­lie Hartwell, Oper­at­ing Part­ner at The Bridge Builders Col­lab­o­ra­tive, pre­sent­ed an Overview of the Mind Train­ing Space.
  • Dr. Bob Bilder, Chief of Med­ical Psy­chol­o­gy & Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy at UCLA, announced the Dis­rup­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Ini­tia­tive by the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy (AACN).
  • Ron Riesen­bach, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Inno­va­tion (CC-ABHI), dis­cussed Spark and three oth­er new fund­ing programs.

These pre­sen­ta­tions took place at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Rein­vent­ing Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 6–8th, 2016).

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology, Brain-health, Bridge Builders Collaborative, Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation, innovation, mind training, Neuropsychology

Daniel Ferguson: Big Data opens a world of opportunity in health, psychology, neuroscience

October 29, 2013 by SharpBrains

Daniel Ferguson
Daniel Fer­gu­son

Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­est­ed in? 
I am most­ly intrigued by brain train­ing and behav­ioral response using neuro/biofeedback and augmented/virtual reality.

What is one impor­tant thing you are work­ing on now, and where can peo­ple learn more about it? 
We are work­ing on ways to lever­age aug­ment­ed real­i­ty for ful­ly immer­sive expe­ri­ences that can impact mood. [Read more…] about Daniel Fer­gu­son: Big Data opens a world of oppor­tu­ni­ty in health, psy­chol­o­gy, neuroscience

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: big data, biofeedback, bipolar, Brain-Training, Daniel Ferguson, depression, EEG, EEG technology, human machine interaction, meditation, mind training, mood, neuro feedback, Neurofeedback, neuroscience, New Dawn Advanced Mind and Body Research and Development, pain, Psychology, virtual-reality

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