While the hip­pocam­pus tends to shrink with age, which con­tributes to cog­ni­tive decline, a recent study shows that this is not always the case (see all those blue lines), sug­gest­ing it can be pos­si­ble to main­tain hip­pocam­pus vol­ume and cog­ni­tive func­tion into our lat­er years.

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Time to wrap-up anoth­er stim­u­lat­ing month with Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of promis­ing news for every­one with a (human) brain 🙂

New tech for brain health:

• Neu­ro­engi­neer­ing meets neu­roethics to address treat­ment-resis­tant depres­sion
• Study: Hear­ing aids may help old­er adults delay demen­tia, depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and falls
• Four guide­lines for smart use of smart­phones

New brain and mind research:

• Reminder: A brain-friend­ly lifestyle is the best approach to delay cog­ni­tive decline and demen­tia
• Study chal­lenges the “seduc­tive” amy­loid hypoth­e­sis of Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)
• Study finds a key ingre­di­ent in mind­ful­ness train­ing: Accep­tance (not acqui­es­cence)

New thinking to shape education and healthcare:

• What are the ethics of dis­cour­ag­ing much-need­ed inno­va­tion giv­en poten­tial pri­va­cy con­cerns?
• Help select the cam­paign stick­er for Brain Aware­ness Week 2020
• Sharp­Brains y El Cere­bro Que Cura se pre­sen­tan en Madrid
• Grow­ing con­cern and hope about astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive health dur­ing space­flight

Finally, a few riddles to tease your brain:

• Nine great rid­dles about Life and Death
• Sev­en sharp rid­dles to cel­e­brate Thanks­giv­ing in per­fect har­mo­ny

Have a great Thanks­giv­ing and Decem­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team

CNN’s Ana Maria Mon­tero inter­views Ned Sahin. The dis­cus­sion about the impact of EU pri­va­cy laws starts in minute 10.

Sto­ry descrip­tion (CNN Mon­ey): Ned Sahin is founder and CEO of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy start-up Brain Pow­er, whose tool “Empow­er Me” uses smart glass­es like Google Glass to coach those with autism. It helps school­child­ren learn social and cog­ni­tive skills and can even guide adults through an inter­view process. Brain Power’s prod­uct is sold to many schools in the U.S. but may nev­er make it to mar­ket in Switzer­land Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Maryam Shanechi. Cred­it: USC Viter­bi

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Is This the Future of Men­tal Health? (USC Viter­bi School of Engi­neer­ing):

“Brain–machine inter­faces (BMIs) pro­vide a direct path­way to the brain to trans­late brain sig­nals into actions … Below, Shanechi (Note: Maryam Shanechi, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor of elec­tri­cal and com­put­er engi­neer­ing) answers some ques­tions about her work and what the future might hold for our under­stand­ing and treat­ment of men­tal dis­or­ders.

What poten­tial does this hold for the future not just of men­tal health, but of under­stand­ing our brains as a whole?

Neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders are a major cause of dis­abil­i­ty world­wide with depres­sive dis­or­ders being the most dis­abling among them. About 30% of major depres­sion patients are treat­ment-resis­tant – that’s about 5 mil­lion peo­ple in the US alone. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ana Maiques, CEO and founder of neu­rotech com­pa­ny Neu­ro­electrics, writes up a com­pelling case in her recent arti­cle, sum­ma­rized thus:

“I strong­ly believe that Neu­rotech entre­pre­neurs can not afford not to be involved in neu­roethics. It is sim­ply not an option any­more.”

I share that belief and would like to take it one step fur­ther:

“I strong­ly believe that health­care prac­ti­tion­ers, researchers, exec­u­tives and reg­u­la­tors can not afford not to be involved in neu­roethics. It is sim­ply not an option any­more.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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

1–2.30pm. How to address pri­va­cy, eth­i­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry issues: Exam­ples in cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, depres­sion and ADHD 

• Dr. Karen Rom­melfanger, Direc­tor of the Neu­roethics Pro­gram at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty
• Dr. Anna Wexler, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at the Perel­man School of Med­i­cine at UPenn
• Jacque­line Stud­er, Senior VP and Gen­er­al Coun­sel of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs
• Chaired by: Kei­th Epstein, Health­care Prac­tice Leader at Blue Heron