Time for a universal “exercise prescription” for kids and adults to boost cognition and mental health?

By SharpBrains | August 31, 2023 |

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of brain research find­ings, tools and con­tro­ver­sies plus some brain teasers to chal­lenge your (and our) work­ing mem­o­ry. #1. Major evi­dence review sup­ports an “exer­cise pre­scrip­tion” for most adults to boost men­tal health “High­er inten­si­ty phys­i­cal activ­i­ty was asso­ci­at­ed with greater improvements”…

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Neurotech, neuroethics and brain data in context: Are “neurorights” the way to mental privacy?

By The Conversation | August 10, 2023

Neu­rotech­nolo­gies – devices that inter­act direct­ly with the brain or ner­vous sys­tem – were once dis­missed as the stuff of sci­ence fic­tion. Not any­more. Sev­er­al com­pa­nies are try­ing to devel­op brain-com­put­er inter­faces, or BCIs, in hopes of help­ing patients with severe paral­y­sis or oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders. Entre­pre­neur Elon Musk’s com­pa­ny Neu­ralink, for exam­ple, recent­ly received…

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Beacon Biosignals raises $27M to scale EEG, AI-based neurobiomarker discovery platform

By SharpBrains | November 17, 2021

Neu­rotech start­up Bea­con Biosig­nals scores $27M to bring AI to EEG analy­sis (Med­C­i­ty News): Elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy is a decades-old tech­nique for cap­tur­ing brain activ­i­ty, data that are used to eval­u­ate brain dis­or­ders. Bea­con Biosig­nals is apply­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to these tests, and the neu­rotech­nol­o­gy start­up has found a ready mar­ket in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies inter­est­ed in assess­ing how…

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Trend: Harnessing digital tech to improve mental health and wellness

By SharpBrains | October 25, 2021

From mind­ful­ness apps to vir­tu­al ther­a­py ses­sions, dig­i­tal tools offer instant access to well­ness resources (The Globe and Mail): In 2015, Brie Code was work­ing at lead­ing video game com­pa­ny Ubisoft as lead arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram­mer when she real­ized that many peo­ple she knew – about half, by her esti­ma­tion – found video games boring.

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On cognitive reframing and biases, stress, mental health tech, Aduhelm backlash, Britney Spears, and more

By SharpBrains | August 31, 2021

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. To low­er stress lev­els and improve prob­lem-solv­ing, prac­tice cog­ni­tive refram­ing instead of vent­ing “… vent­ing like­ly doesn’t soothe anger as much as aug­ment it. That’s because encour­ag­ing peo­ple to…

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Headspace and Ginger merge to expand and scale up digital mental health

By SharpBrains | August 25, 2021

Head­space and Gin­ger are merg­ing to form Head­space Health (TechCrunch): Med­i­ta­tion app Head­space this morn­ing announced plans to merge with on-demand men­tal health ser­vice Gin­ger. Bar­ring unfore­seen reg­u­la­to­ry road­blocks, the two com­pa­nies will com­bine to form Head­space Health. The new orga­ni­za­tion would sport a com­bined val­ue of $3 bil­lion and a head­count of more than 800.…

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