neurobiological

July 14th @ MIT: Discussion about Neurotechnology and Depression

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neurotechnology—–

Heads-up about an inter­est­ing event in Boston on July 14th. Neu­roso­lu­tions 2016: Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Depression

Study: Judicial opinions mentioning neuroscientific evidence doubled between 2005 and 2012

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law_brainscansThe Brain Gets Its Day in Court (The Atlantic):

“The crime was brutal…Detrich is still on death row today as the appeals process drags on, but in 2010, his lawyers achieved a vic­to­ry of sorts. They claimed that [Read more…] about Study: Judi­cial opin­ions men­tion­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence dou­bled between 2005 and 2012

Update: 25 Key References to Navigate the Brain Health and Neurotechnology Revolution

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holdingbrain
Time for Sharp­Brains’ Novem­ber e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 25 of the key ref­er­ence mate­ri­als that par­tic­i­pants at the 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit found most intrigu­ing, in order of dis­cus­sion dur­ing the Sum­mit. Our deep­est grat­i­tude goes to Sum­mit Speak­ers, Spon­sors, and every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in our best con­fer­ence to date!

If you reg­is­tered to par­tic­i­pate at the 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, you can access all ses­sion record­ings Here. If you did­n’t reg­is­ter, you can pur­chase access here.
2015SummitSpeakers_2

Time is over for “one size fits all” dementia treatments. Next: How to best integrate non-pharmacologic and pharmacologic approaches

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Dementia_Alzheimer's

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Time to ‘just say no’ to behav­ior-calm­ing drugs for Alzheimer patients? Experts say yes (Med­ical Xpress):

“Doc­tors write mil­lions of pre­scrip­tions a year for drugs to calm the behav­ior of peo­ple with Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er types of demen­tia. But non-drug approach­es actu­al­ly work bet­ter, and car­ry far few­er risks, experts con­clude in a new report.

In fact, non-drug approach­es should be the first choice for treat­ing demen­tia patients’ com­mon symp­toms such as [Read more…] about Time is over for “one size fits all” demen­tia treat­ments. Next: How to best inte­grate non-phar­ma­co­log­ic and phar­ma­co­log­ic approaches

Q: What do people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety have in common? A: A brain with similar gray-matter loss

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graymatter_comparison

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Dif­fer­ent men­tal dis­or­ders cause same brain-mat­ter loss, study finds (press release):

“A meta-analy­sis of 193 brain-imag­ing stud­ies shows sim­i­lar gray-mat­ter loss in the brains of peo­ple with diag­noses as dif­fer­ent as schiz­o­phre­nia, depres­sion and addiction…The find­ings call into ques­tion a long­stand­ing ten­den­cy to dis­tin­guish psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders chiefly by their symp­toms rather than their under­ly­ing brain pathol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Q: What do peo­ple with schiz­o­phre­nia, bipo­lar dis­or­der, depres­sion, addic­tion, obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der, and anx­i­ety have in com­mon? A: A brain with sim­i­lar gray-mat­ter loss

Co-Adaptive Learning: Adaptive Technology for the Aging

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My apolo­gies for not hav­ing blogged in a few days. I land­ed back in San Fran­cis­co today after speak­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a very stim­u­lat­ing event put togeth­er by the Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Adap­tive Neur­al Sys­tems Cen­ter with fund­ing from the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion.

The 2‑day sym­po­sium was titled Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging (link opens a PDF with the agen­da), fea­tured impres­sive speak­ers and a high­ly qual­i­fied audi­ence, and cov­ered a wide array of cur­rent and future health­care and aging appli­ca­tions of neu­ro­science. The one aspect that was very mean­ing­ful for me to observe how often we dis­cussed cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, cog­ni­tive deficits, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment tools (both inva­sive and non-inva­sive) in a vari­ety of healthy aging and clin­i­cal contexts.

I will share more about the event in the next few days, includ­ing links to the fas­ci­nat­ing work pre­sent­ed by speak­ers, but let me know sim­ply thank the two gra­cious orga­niz­ers and hosts of the event by quot­ing the goal of their cen­ter and work:

- Jim­my Abbas, PhD: “One of the hall­marks of bio­log­i­cal sys­tems is the abil­i­ty to adapt. In our work, we mim­ic neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal sys­tems in order to endow tech­nol­o­gy with the abil­i­ty to adapt, and we use tech­nol­o­gy to max­i­mize adap­ta­tions in neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal sys­tems. With these approach­es, we aim to pro­mote func­tion­al adap­ta­tion after disability.”

- Ranu Jung, PhD: “Our goal is to improve the qual­i­ty of life of indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties by design­ing tech­niques to inves­ti­gate, replace and repair dam­aged neur­al sys­tems to enhance mobil­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty. Whether a per­son has spinal cord injury, limb loss or Parkin­son’s dis­ease, mobil­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty mean independence.”

Links:

Cen­ter: Adap­tive Neur­al Sys­tems Center. 

Agen­da (PDF): Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging