Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

neurotechnologies

Air Force announces research platform to harness closed-loop neurotechnology and accelerate learning “on the fly”

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U.S. Air Force illustration/Richard Eldridge

Air Force Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Part­ner­ship Aims to Accel­er­ate Learn­ing (Mil­i­tary Spot):

The Indi­vid­u­al­ized Neur­al Learn­ing Sys­tem, or iNeu­raLS, is a new aug­ment­ed learn­ing plat­form that will enable rapid learn­ing by closed-loop mod­u­la­tion of cog­ni­tive states dur­ing skill acqui­si­tion. Essen­tial­ly, the AFRL team seeks to devel­op a capa­bil­i­ty that will give Air­men the abil­i­ty to rapid­ly acquire knowl­edge and skills on the fly through direct brain inter­faces with the help of neu­rotech­nolo­gies…

[Read more…] about Air Force announces research plat­form to har­ness closed-loop neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and accel­er­ate learn­ing “on the fly”

Update: The latest research and noninvasive neurotechnologies for brain health and mental fitness

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter!

1. Food for (non­par­ti­san) Thought: Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test?

2. A school psy­chol­o­gist shares good tips to sup­port our kids and, yes, man­age our own stress. Three Ss to reduce the stress of “home­school­ing” our kids: Sim­pli­fy, Struc­ture, Sup­port.

3. Wow. Mind­strong Health rais­es $100M to trans­form how we mea­sure and pro­mote men­tal health.

4. Great part­ner­ship! Kaiser Per­ma­nente offers Calm men­tal fit­ness app at no cost to mil­lions of mem­bers.

5. “Just as you can’t self-intro­spect to deter­mine your cho­les­terol, much of the high­est-val­ue infor­ma­tion about our­selves and each oth­er sits out­side our con­scious aware­ness.” — Bryan John­son, Founder and CEO of Ker­nel, as Ker­nel launch­es Neu­ro­science as a Ser­vice (NaaS) built on non-inva­sive brain record­ing tech­nol­o­gy.

6. Fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tion on how and why “Prac­tice actu­al­ly changes the phys­i­cal­i­ty of your brain” — Q&A with Rick Han­son on Neu­rod­har­ma, brain sci­ence, per­son­al prac­tice and well-being

7. May this trend con­tin­ue (and for bet­ter rea­sons): Grow­ing inter­est in dig­i­tal men­tal health among insur­ers and med­ical care providers.

8. Par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing for mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, ocu­lar hyper­ten­sion, dia­betes, and trau­mat­ic brain injury: Portable brain assess­ment device by Head­safe secures 510(k) FDA clear­ance.

9. May a lim­er­ick a day keep the neu­rol­o­gist away?

10. If not a lim­er­ick, per­haps a few brain teasers. Say the months of the year in alpha­bet­i­cal order. Too easy? Well, try doing so back­wards, in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order. Five quick brain teasers to flex those Atten­tion and Work­ing Mem­o­ry men­tal mus­cles

11. You have been invit­ed to a fundrais­ing gala at your old col­lege (via Zoom of course) and decide that this black-tie event demands a super white Ital­ian shirt, like the one you bought years ago for your wed­ding. Ready for some quick math? Try this Brain Teas­er: What shirt size you need?

Have a great month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Kaiser Permanente offers Calm mental fitness app at no cost to millions of members

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Med­i­ta­tion app Calm is now free for Kaiser Per­ma­nen­te’s mil­lions of mem­bers (CNBC):

Kaiser Per­ma­nente is try­ing to give its 12.4 mil­lion mem­bers a lit­tle bit of calm.

Start­ing Tues­day, the health-care provider is allow­ing patients to down­load the Calm med­i­ta­tion app for free as part of a way to help cus­tomers man­age anx­i­ety as they deal with the fall­out from the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Calm is the most-pop­u­lar health and fit­ness app on Google-pow­ered devices and No. 2 on the iPhone, accord­ing to App Annie. Paid sub­scrip­tions nor­mal­ly cost $70 a year … Calm was see­ing surg­ing growth even before the coro­n­avirus forced Amer­i­cans to shel­ter in place and led to sky­rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment. The San Fran­cis­co-based start-up was val­ued by investors last year at $1 bil­lion, two years after being named Apple’s app of the year back in 2017. The app has been down­loaded over 80 mil­lion times.

[Read more…] about Kaiser Per­ma­nente offers Calm men­tal fit­ness app at no cost to mil­lions of mem­bers

Tuesday April 28th, online: Explore strategies and tools to boost mental wellbeing during (and after) Covid-19

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Heads-up about a very time­ly vir­tu­al event next week.

When: Tues­day, April 28th, 9am — 6pm US Pacif­ic Time (San Fran­cis­co time zone)

Where: Online

What: Find Well­be­ing Dur­ing Covid19 — Dis­cov­er 200+ Free and Dis­count­ed Tools to help you find some relief and emerge even stronger

How: Learn More and Reg­is­ter HERE

Confirmed Speakers include:

[Read more…] about Tues­day April 28th, online: Explore strate­gies and tools to boost men­tal well­be­ing dur­ing (and after) Covid-19

Will these five NeuroRights help harness emerging neurotechnologies for the common good?

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Data for Good: Bio­log­i­cal Sci­en­tist, DSI Mem­ber Rafael Yuste on the Eth­i­cal Devel­op­ment of Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty release):

“Brain-com­put­er inter­faces may soon have the pow­er to decode people’s thoughts and inter­fere with their men­tal activ­i­ty. Even now the inter­faces, or BCIs, which link brains direct­ly to dig­i­tal net­works, are help­ing brain-impaired patients and amputees per­form sim­ple motor tasks such as mov­ing a cur­sor, con­trol­ling a motor­ized wheel­chair, or direct­ing a robot­ic arm. And non­in­va­sive BCI’s that can under­stand words we want to type and place them onto screens are being devel­oped.

But in the wrong hands, BCIs could [Read more…] about Will these five Neu­roR­ights help har­ness emerg­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies for the com­mon good?

Fast Forward to 2040: How to prepare for the new era in brain enhancement that will change the way we think, work, and heal

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Decades from now when our aug­ment­ed brains have enhanced our cog­ni­tive func­tion and trans­formed near­ly every aspect of our lives, many of us will look back and won­der why we didn’t do more to pre­pare for these inevitable changes. Gov­ern­ment lead­ers may grap­ple with the run­away effects of AI and brain enhance­ment on geopol­i­tics. Com­pa­nies that fail to incor­po­rate neu­rotech­nolo­gies and BCI into their oper­a­tional flow could lose sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket share and be forced to scram­ble in an attempt to regain a foothold in an indus­try they once dom­i­nat­ed.

Work­ers who don’t heed the warn­ings to re-skill or upskill may find them­selves out of a job as entire indus­tries dis­ap­pear. Grad­u­at­ing col­lege stu­dents may dis­cov­er their field of study is no longer rel­e­vant in the busi­ness world, leav­ing them unpre­pared for the chang­ing job mar­ket. Tech inno­va­tors could be caught up in fierce com­pe­ti­tion to snap up employ­ees from a very lim­it­ed tal­ent pool, dri­ving up the cost of inno­va­tion and ham­per­ing its devel­op­ment. And every­day cit­i­zens may be wrestling with the unex­pect­ed con­se­quences of unin­ten­tion­al­ly giv­ing away the rights to their neur­al data.

Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be this way. [Read more…] about Fast For­ward to 2040: How to pre­pare for the new era in brain enhance­ment that will change the way we think, work, and heal