Mindstrong Health

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

UCLA launches major mental health study collecting & analyzing data from Apple wearables to better understand depression and anxiety

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Apple and UCLA kick off a three-year depres­sion study (CNBC):

UCLA on Tues­day said it is launch­ing a three-year study to bet­ter under­stand how fac­tors such as sleep, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, heart rate and dai­ly rou­tines impact symp­toms of depres­sion and anxiety.

UCLA is work­ing with Apple to design the study, which will use data col­lect­ed by the iPhone, Apple Watch and Bed­dit sleep-track­er … involves 150 par­tic­i­pants recruit­ed from among UCLA Health patients. From there, the next phas­es of the research will expand out to 3,000 par­tic­i­pants from both the hos­pi­tal and the stu­dent body. Study par­tic­i­pants will down­load an app onto their iPhones, then receive a Bed­dit sleep mon­i­tor and an Apple Watch, which they can use through­out the study.

[Read more…] about UCLA launch­es major men­tal health study col­lect­ing & ana­lyz­ing data from Apple wear­ables to bet­ter under­stand depres­sion and anxiety

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

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

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Mind­strong scores $100M to mon­i­tor well­ness via smart­phone behav­iors (Mobi­Health News):

This morn­ing dig­i­tal men­tal health plat­form Mind­strong scored a whop­ping $100 mil­lion in Series C funding.

While Mind­strong has a his­to­ry of sol­id fund­ing rounds, this amount will more than dou­ble its total fund­ing. In 2017 it got its first $14 mil­lion cash infu­sion. That was fol­lowed by a $15 mil­lion Series B fund­ing round in June of 2018, which got a $31 mil­lion add-on in Jan­u­ary of 2019, bring­ing the company’s total fund­ing to just under $60 mil­lion before this news.

The com­pa­ny was first found­ed in 2014, but it made a splash in 2017 when for­mer NIMH direc­tor Dr. Thomas Insel left his posi­tion at Ver­i­ly to take on the role as pres­i­dent at Mind­strong. Insel is still involved in the com­pa­ny today in an advi­so­ry role…The tech­nol­o­gy also has a dig­i­tal bio­mark­er com­po­nent. This can track a patient’s smart­phone behav­iors. While the start­up will not see what a patient is doing on their phone, it can mon­i­tor how a patient taps, scrolls and types. It can look for indi­ca­tors of stress, depres­sion or oth­er men­tal health factors.

[Read more…] about Mind­strong Health rais­es $100M to trans­form how we mea­sure and pro­mote men­tal health

Mindstrong Health recruits slew of Silicon Valley talent

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– Mind­strong Health is apply­ing machine learn­ing meth­ods on human-smart­phone inter­ac­tions to iden­ti­fy dig­i­tal phe­no­typ­ing fea­tures that could be clin­i­cal­ly useful.

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Mind­strong Health Expands Exec­u­tive Team to Advance Tech­nol­o­gy for New Vir­tu­al Men­tal Health Care Mod­el (press release):

“Mind­strong Health, a health­care inno­va­tion com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to trans­form­ing men­tal health through inno­va­tions in dig­i­tal mea­sure­ment and vir­tu­al care mod­els, today announced the addi­tion of ten senior exec­u­tives to its lead­er­ship team includ­ing CEO Daniel Graf, who joined the com­pa­ny in Octo­ber 2019.”

On top of Mr. Graf, Mind­strong Health has also recruit­ed: [Read more…] about Mind­strong Health recruits slew of Sil­i­con Val­ley talent

Rethinking and Retooling Brain Health and Mental Health

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We hope you enjoy this slid­edeck sup­port­ing two ses­sions held at the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health (March 7–9th).  Full record­ings are avail­able for pur­chase here.

8–8.45am. Rethink­ing and Retool­ing Brain Health and Men­tal Health 

  • Dr. Tom Insel, Co-founder and Pres­i­dent of Mind­strong Health and for­mer Direc­tor of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH)

9–10.30am. How to detect prob­lems ear­ly: Exam­ples in Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, Parkinson’s, anx­i­ety and PTSD

  • Dr. Sri­jan Sen, Pro­fes­sor of Depres­sion and Neu­ro­sciences at Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan
  • Jan Samzelius, Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tist of Neu­raMetrix
  • Dr. Tony Chang, Asso­ciate at Mer­ck Ventures
  • Chaired by: Dr. Dean­na Bel­sky, Asso­ciate at Dol­by Fam­i­ly Ventures