Neuralink

Neurotech start-up Paradromics raises $20M to address brain-related disorders via next-gen brain-computer interfaces

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Neu­ralink Com­peti­tor Rais­es $20 Mil­lion for Brain Implants (Bloomberg):

A com­peti­tor to Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink said it raised $20 mil­lion, enough to get it on track to intro­duce a new gen­er­a­tion of pow­er­ful and tiny elec­trodes to the human brain.

Paradromics Inc., found­ed in 2015 about a year ahead of Neu­ralink, is build­ing brain-com­put­er inter­faces that could help peo­ple with dis­or­ders rang­ing from paral­y­sis to speech imped­i­ments. [Read more…] about Neu­rotech start-up Paradromics rais­es $20M to address brain-relat­ed dis­or­ders via next-gen brain-com­put­er interfaces

Update: A life of cognitive and physical exercise helps you stay sharp in your 70s and beyond

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 13 fas­ci­nat­ing brain research find­ings, use­ful resources–and a brain teas­er to test your atten­tion skills.

#1. Good news of the month: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

#2. A dis­tinc­tion WITH a dif­fer­ence: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

#3. “Be mind­ful that with the rapid changes we are expe­ri­enc­ing, our brains are going through accel­er­at­ed learn­ing. Our brains get tired just as our bod­ies would if we ran a marathon with­out train­ing.” How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

#4. Yes, Yes, and Yes. To har­ness our best selves, “Tem­per your empa­thy, train your com­pas­sion, and avoid the news”

#5. Things start ear­ly. Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

#6. Which is why we look for­ward to see­ing 9,000+ stu­dents, plus their many teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors, fur­ther devel­op their unique brains and minds in years ahead: Help­ing shape the future of life­long learn­ing via SEK Edu­ca­tion Group

#7. “… it would cer­tain­ly be pre­ma­ture to sug­gest that mov­ing to a high alti­tude state would improve a child’s ADHD symp­toms. How­ev­er, the find­ings high­light the val­ue of keep­ing an open mind in efforts to under­stand the devel­op­ment of ADHD and the role nat­ur­al envi­ron­ments may play in poten­tial­ly alle­vi­at­ing it.” Study finds sur­pris­ing cor­re­la­tion between states’ ele­va­tion and ADHD prevalence

#9. Time to start pay­ing seri­ous atten­tion to the brain/ cog­ni­tive side effects of com­mon med­ica­tions. Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition

#10. Fas­ci­nat­ing: “After a 14-day train­ing peri­od … visu­ospa­tial skills improved by 40%. This increase in visu­ospa­tial abil­i­ty was shown to be direct­ly respon­si­ble for a reduc­tion in motion sick­ness by 51% in the sim­u­la­tor … and a 58% reduc­tion in the on-road tri­al.” Study: Self-dri­ving cars will increase motion sickness…unless we retrain our brains to improve visu­ospa­tial skills

#11. Behav­ioral health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty meet big phar­ma to hope­ful­ly address a huge need. Click Ther­a­peu­tics and Boehringer Ingel­heim part­ner to devel­op and mar­ket a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat schizophrenia

#12. Neu­ralink: Thumbs up or down?

#13. Brain teas­er: Did you notice the numer­i­cal error as it hap­pened? If not, feel free to go back and find it now 🙂

 

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy October,

 

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Neuralink: Thumbs up or down so far?

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Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink is neu­ro­science the­ater (MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review):

Rock-climb with­out fear. Play a sym­pho­ny in your head. See radar with super­hu­man vision. Dis­cov­er the nature of con­scious­ness. Cure blind­ness, paral­y­sis, deaf­ness, and men­tal ill­ness. Those are just a few of the appli­ca­tions that Elon Musk and employ­ees at his four-year-old neu­ro­science com­pa­ny Neu­ralink believe elec­tron­ic brain-com­put­er inter­faces will one day bring about. [Read more…] about Neu­ralink: Thumbs up or down so far?

Debate: Will brain-computer interfaces replace smartphones and other “mediating” devices?

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The Fifth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion: where mind meets machine (The National):

The Fifth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion will make that con­nec­tion clos­er and seam­less, and will feel unmedi­at­ed. The smart device onto which we tap and into which we speak will dis­ap­pear. Brain-com­put­er inter­faces will replace them…Can we con­nect our brains – and our minds – to machines? The short answer is yes, and we have done so for some time. The longer answer is more com­pli­cat­ed, but more interesting.

[Read more…] about Debate: Will brain-com­put­er inter­faces replace smart­phones and oth­er “medi­at­ing” devices?

Kernel launches Neuroscience as a Service (NaaS) built on non-invasive brain recording technology

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Ker­nel Sound ID is designed to help decode and visu­al­ize what a per­son is hearing

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A Neuroscientist’s Thoughts On Ker­nel’s Announce­ment:

“Ker­nel, the neu­rotech com­pa­ny found­ed by Bryan John­son, just released a wave of new infor­ma­tion about the tech­nol­o­gy they have been build­ing over the past half-decade. With this announce­ment, we final­ly get a glimpse into the secre­tive company’s plans. We knew that they had ditched their inten­tions of pur­su­ing inva­sive brain record­ing tech­niques, leav­ing that all to Neu­ralink, a sim­i­lar­ly mind­ed effort launched by ser­i­al entre­pre­neur Elon Musk. There were rumours of a NIRS (near-infrared spec­troscopy) based sys­tem, but noth­ing con­crete [Read more…] about Ker­nel launch­es Neu­ro­science as a Ser­vice (NaaS) built on non-inva­sive brain record­ing technology

Please help us spread the word about neuroplasticity & brain health innovation

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Hun­dreds of com­pa­nies around the globe–now includ­ing Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink and even Facebook–are research­ing and devel­op­ing new ways to help brain own­ers be smarter, sharp­er, and healthier.

What explains this flur­ry of activ­i­ty? Where may it be headed?

To help you under­stand what’s going on, let me high­light five key facts that emerged from the recent Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit:

Fact 1. There are 7.5 bil­lion human brains out there, and every­one needs help
Fact 2. Life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty means all those brains can “sculpt” themselves
Fact 3. Mobile, sens­ing, wear­able tech­nolo­gies, cou­pled with AI, pro­vide a new plat­form to har­ness that neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for good
Fact 4. Entre­pre­neur­ship and invest­ments are fuel­ing accel­er­at­ed growth
Fact 5. Pro­fes­sion­als are step­ping up to help edu­cate con­sumers and patients

 

“The future is already here — it’s just not very even­ly dis­trib­uted” — essay­ist William Gibson.

 

Well, then why don’t we take on that dis­tri­b­u­tion chal­lenge and appro­pri­ate­ly spread the knowl­edge and the tools 🙂

Please read the arti­cle 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Rev­o­lu­tion in your favorite com­mu­ni­ty, and please share the arti­cle with your friends and colleagues!

 

Also, if you want to go much deep­er into these facts and what they mean for the future of brain health and brain enhance­ment, please Reg­is­ter soon to Access 40+ Hours of Ses­sion Record­ings from 100+ Brain Experts (offer expires on May 1st; 10%-off dis­count code: sharp2017)

Kind regards,

The Sharp­Brains Team