Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

neurologists

To screen, or not to screen (for dementia), that is still the question

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A lead­ing group of med­ical experts on Tues­day declined to endorse cog­ni­tive screen­ing for old­er adults, fuel­ing a debate that has sim­mered for years.

The U.S. Pre­ven­tive Ser­vices Task Force said it could nei­ther rec­om­mend nor oppose cog­ni­tive screen­ing, cit­ing insuf­fi­cient sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence of the practice’s ben­e­fits and harms and call­ing for fur­ther studies.

The task force’s work informs poli­cies set by Medicare and pri­vate insur­ers. Its rec­om­men­da­tions, an accom­pa­ny­ing sci­en­tif­ic state­ment and two edi­to­ri­als were pub­lished Tues­day in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Association.

The task force’s new posi­tion comes as con­cern mounts over a ris­ing tide of old­er adults with Alzheimer’s dis­ease and [Read more…] about To screen, or not to screen (for demen­tia), that is still the question

Executive Functions in Health and Disease: New book to help integrate Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

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Neu­ro­science used to be the monop­oly of a few elite uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy used to be a quaint niche dis­ci­pline rel­a­tive­ly uncon­nect­ed to the larg­er world of neu­ro­science and con­tent in its meth­ods with paper-and-pen­cil tests. [Read more…] about Exec­u­tive Func­tions in Health and Dis­ease: New book to help inte­grate Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Neuropsychology

Trend: Mobile, data-rich apps to monitor and promote neurocognitive health

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david_eagleman_braincheck—–

BrainCheck rais­es $3 mil­lion for app to mon­i­tor brain health (TechCrunch):

“A Hous­ton-based start­up called BrainCheck has raised $3 mil­lion in seed fund­ing for an app that helps users under­stand, by sim­ply play­ing some games on an iPad, if they or a loved one may have suf­fered a con­cus­sion. [Read more…] about Trend: Mobile, data-rich apps to mon­i­tor and pro­mote neu­rocog­ni­tive health

Neurologists prescribing cognitive enhancement drugs to healthy kids and adults?

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Human-brain-pillsAccord­ing to a new posi­tion state­ment by the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN), pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, “atten­tion-boost­ing,” drugs to healthy chil­dren is mis­guid­ed and not jus­ti­fi­able. Inter­est­ing­ly, a 2009 posi­tion state­ment by AAN still in force today stat­ed that doing so with adult “patients” is both legal and eth­i­cal (includ­ing the remark that “Neu­rol­o­gists who pre­scribe med­ica­tions for the off-label use of neu­roen­hance­ment are act­ing law­ful­ly,” with­out real­ly chal­leng­ing whether the drugs have been proven to be a) effec­tive and b) safe in that con­text). [Read more…] about Neu­rol­o­gists pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment drugs to healthy kids and adults?