non-invasive neurotechnology

Challenge ahead: Harnessing technology for good mental health

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Mak­ing tech­nol­o­gy an ally in men­tal health care (Fun­dación Inno­vación Bankinter):

Inter­est in using tech­nol­o­gy for men­tal health dates back to the mid twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. “Stud­ies began back in the 1960s, giv­en the grow­ing con­cern about addic­tion in chil­dren (espe­cial­ly) and adults,” clar­i­fies Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez about the begin­ning of this discipline.

Sesame Street, the well-known Amer­i­can show, is a project that devel­oped to “mas­ter the addic­tive qual­i­ties of tele­vi­sion and do some­thing good with them“, in the words of its pro­duc­ers. As Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez points out, these pro­grams appeared to “chan­nel tech­nol­o­gy in a way that is ben­e­fi­cial to cog­ni­tive and men­tal health,” which indi­cates that this inter­est is not temporary.

But it is new in oth­er areas. For obvi­ous rea­sons, the study of the Inter­net and social net­works is much more recent than that of tele­vi­sion, and is usu­al­ly divid­ed into two major trends: [Read more…] about Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

Studies identify key ethical concerns raised by invasive and non-invasive neurotechnologies

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Stud­ies out­line key eth­i­cal ques­tions sur­round­ing brain-com­put­er inter­face tech (NCSU release):

Brain-com­put­er inter­face (BCI) tech­nolo­gies are no longer hypo­thet­i­cal, yet there are fun­da­men­tal aspects of the tech­nol­o­gy that remain unad­dressed by both ethi­cists and pol­i­cy-mak­ers. Two new papers address these issues by out­lin­ing the out­stand­ing eth­i­cal issues, offer­ing guid­ance for address­ing those issues, and offer­ing par­tic­u­lar insight into the field of BCI tech for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment. [Read more…] about Stud­ies iden­ti­fy key eth­i­cal con­cerns raised by inva­sive and non-inva­sive neurotechnologies

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

Eight brain tech insights and a special offer to honor Brain Awareness Week 2020

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Every March, Brain Aware­ness Week (BAW) unites hun­dreds of orga­ni­za­tions world­wide in a cel­e­bra­tion of the brain for peo­ple of all ages. Activ­i­ties typ­i­cal­ly include open days at neu­ro­science labs, exhi­bi­tions about the brain, lec­tures on brain-relat­ed top­ics, dis­plays at libraries and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters, class­room work­shops, and more.

Brain Aware­ness Week 2020 starts today, Mon­day March 16th.

To con­tribute to such a glob­al edu­ca­tion­al cam­paign, espe­cial­ly now that many phys­i­cal events have been can­celled, we are offer­ing our best edu­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al resources at a 90% dis­count from today till Sun­day, March 22th.

–> To ben­e­fit from this oppor­tu­ni­ty, use this dis­count code: Brain­Week

 

Stay Healthy, Stay Warm, let’s Har­ness this oppor­tu­ni­ty to Sharp­en our Minds and Explore the lat­est on brain health and neurotechnology!

 

Our core edu­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al resources offered at a 90% dis­count this week: [Read more…] about Eight brain tech insights and a spe­cial offer to hon­or Brain Aware­ness Week 2020

Latest brain research, tools and teasers to think outside the mental health status quo box

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a range of  research find­ings, resources, brain teasers and rid­dles to help trans­late emerg­ing neu­ro­science into real-world appli­ca­tions and improve our col­lec­tive brain & men­tal health.

New thinking:

New research:

New tools:

Fun brain teasers:

 

Have a great month of March,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

U.S. Army develops novel way to analyze brain imaging data and shape emerging non-invasive neurotechnology

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Aggre­gate dis­tri­b­u­tion of cor­ti­cal brain-wave activ­i­ty, orga­nized by stan­dard fre­quen­cy bands, across a range of depths. Cred­it: U.S. Army

Army devel­ops big data approach to neu­ro­science (press release):

“A big data approach to neu­ro­science promis­es to sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve our under­stand­ing of the rela­tion­ship between brain activ­i­ty and performance.

To date, there have been rel­a­tive­ly few attempts to use a big-data approach with­in the emerg­ing field of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy. [Read more…] about U.S. Army devel­ops nov­el way to ana­lyze brain imag­ing data and shape emerg­ing non-inva­sive neurotechnology