National-Institutes-of-Health

Helping young brains fight off anxiety by training and raising cognitive control

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Anx­i­ety is one of the most com­mon child­hood men­tal dis­or­ders. About 7% of chil­dren suf­fer from it at any giv­en time, with near­ly 1 in 3 ado­les­cents expe­ri­enc­ing it some­time dur­ing their teen years.

For an anx­ious child, seem­ing­ly nor­mal activ­i­ties can be hard. Wor­ried kids have trou­ble adjust­ing to school, mak­ing friends, and learn­ing. They can feel inhib­it­ed, avoid­ing chal­lenges by run­ning away or retreat­ing into them­selves. While par­ents may feel des­per­ate to help, their approach­es can back­fire. For exam­ple, try­ing to talk kids out of their feel­ings or keep them away from anx­i­ety-pro­duc­ing sit­u­a­tions may inad­ver­tent­ly make the anx­i­ety worse. [Read more…] about Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

Given cognitive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain training may work best for each person and under which conditions?

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Does ‘Brain Train­ing’ Actu­al­ly Work? (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

If there were an app on your phone that could improve your mem­o­ry, would you try it? Who wouldn’t want a bet­ter mem­o­ry? After all, our rec­ol­lec­tions are frag­ile and can be impaired by dis­eases, injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions and, most acute­ly for all of us, aging. [Read more…] about Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

The NIH starts spending $1.5 billion in new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neuro-technologies (BRAIN) projects

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NIH Starts to Spend $4.8 Bil­lion in “Extra” Cures Drug Research Mon­ey (P&T Community):

“The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) launched 110 new brain research projects in the fis­cal year end­ing last Sep­tem­ber (2017) with the first por­tion of the $1.5 bil­lion over 10 years it will hope­ful­ly receive from the 21st Cen­tu­ry Cures Act, which spread a total of $4.8 bil­lion over four NIH pro­grams. That is mon­ey over and above the NIH annu­al appro­pri­a­tion from Con­gress. The oth­er three “Inno­va­tion Funds” are: Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cine, Can­cer Moon­shot, and Regen­er­a­tive Medicine.

The $1.5 bil­lion in new Brain Research through Advanc­ing Inno­v­a­tive Neu­ro-tech­nolo­gies (BRAIN) research mon­ey seems par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant giv­en the announce­ment in Jan­u­ary that Pfiz­er was end­ing its Alzheimer’s research pro­gram [Read more…] about The NIH starts spend­ing $1.5 bil­lion in new Brain Research through Advanc­ing Inno­v­a­tive Neu­ro-tech­nolo­gies (BRAIN) projects

Next: Neurotechnologies to visualize (and why not enhance) brain circuits

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Cred­it: Vin­cent Pieri­bone, Ph.D., John B. Pierce Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Inc.

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Obama’s Brain Project Backs Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review):

“…The White House had com­mit­ted to spend­ing $100 mil­lion this year on the project, which seeks to devel­op new tech­nolo­gies for study­ing the brain. As part of that, today the U.S. Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health announced [Read more…] about Next: Neu­rotech­nolo­gies to visu­al­ize (and why not enhance) brain circuits

News: Launch of Brain Start-up Challenge on August 1st

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brain_innovationDear Sharp­Brains community,

We have read Alvaro Fer­nan­dez’s pub­li­ca­tion regard­ing the BRAIN Ini­tia­tive in Ven­ture Beat and thought our first-of-a-kind Brain Start-up Chal­lenge would be of inter­est to many of you.

To pro­vide some back­ground, the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health, Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion, Cen­ter for Advanc­ing Inno­va­tion and the Her­itage Provider Net­work, have part­nered to cre­ate a “first of a kind” Brain Chal­lenge. The Chal­lenge will fea­ture 20 rig­or­ous­ly select­ed brain relat­ed inven­tions that have com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty and are impor­tant to pub­lic health. [Read more…] about News: Launch of Brain Start-up Chal­lenge on August 1st

(Some) New Yorker articles are bogus

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Scarecrow-or-strawmanI love read­ing the New York­er. I have writ­ten before about bogus brain games, and about bogus brain train­ing claims. We have pub­lished a 10-ques­tion check­list to help con­sumers make informed decisions.

All this is to say I was sur­prised to read a recent New York­er blog arti­cle titled “Brain games are bogus.” If you are going to make such strong claims, you need to back them up with seri­ous due dili­gence and analy­sis, and explain to read­ers what [Read more…] about (Some) New York­er arti­cles are bogus