noninvasive neurotechnology

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

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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 their exper­i­men­tal brain ther­a­pies are work­ing. Now Bea­con Biosig­nals has some­thing else: $27 mil­lion in financ­ing. [Read more…] about Bea­con Biosig­nals rais­es $27M to scale EEG, AI-based neu­ro­bio­mark­er dis­cov­ery platform

DARPA-funded nonsurgical neurotechnologies push the frontier of brain-machine interfaces

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Cred­it: J Robin­son and Rice University

Rice Uni­ver­si­ty Charges Into the Future with Mag­net­ics and Bioim­plants (All About Circuits):

Advances in self-gen­er­at­ing drug deliv­ery sys­tems, brain-to-brain com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and injury mit­i­ga­tion tech­nolo­gies are just some of the newest research com­ing down the pipeline from Rice University.

Sev­er­al research projects fund­ed by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agen­cy’s (DARPA) N3 pro­gram might her­ald a future of high­ly advanced human-machine inter­fac­ing that expands the capa­bil­i­ties of sol­diers and first respon­ders. [Read more…] about DARPA-fund­ed non­sur­gi­cal neu­rotech­nolo­gies push the fron­tier of brain-machine interfaces

Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health.

#1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign of Alzheimer’s dis­ease), and had more amy­loid and tau deposits in their brain … There’s increas­ing evi­dence that chron­ic stress is both harm­ful to your body – and your brain. But more research is need­ed to under­stand this link.” Repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing may increase (or per­haps be caused by) cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s pathology

#2. “…even sim­ple cog­ni­tive process­es like mak­ing a shop­ping list now require more brain­pow­er. “Now, rather than think­ing, ‘I’ll just run to the store’, you’re think­ing about what you need, what stores are open and whether it’ll be safe to go there. Let’s say your brain can do four tasks at once. Now all of a sud­den there are 10, and you can’t do any of them” … reboot­ing your work­ing mem­o­ry may also mean cut­ting down on your news con­sump­tion and con­sid­er­ing a break from social media. But the most effec­tive thing to do might sim­ply be to con­vince your­self it’s OK to be strug­gling.” Why stress reg­u­la­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry are core build­ing blocks of life­long resilience

#3. Ten years from now, will we see DSM‑6 or Some­thing Much Bet­ter (SMB)-1? The way we approach Men­tal Health today is bro­ken beyond repair. The ques­tion is, what comes next, and how fast can we get there?

#4. Now, please draw the let­ter J in your mind. Then, draw the let­ter D. Turn it 90 degrees to the left and put it in top of the J. What does this shape resem­ble? Enjoy these three quick brain teasers to exer­cise your work­ing memory

#5. “Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy can help read­ers make sense of the world. Rather than lim­it­ing read­ers’ capac­i­ty to deal with real­i­ty, expo­sure to out­side-the-box cre­ative sto­ries may expand their abil­i­ty to engage real­i­ty based on sci­ence … With increas­ing rates of anx­i­ety, depres­sion, and men­tal health issues for youth in the past two decades, it may be the case that young peo­ple, no dif­fer­ent from Amer­i­can soci­ety gen­er­al­ly, are suf­fer­ing from real­i­ty over­load.” — Esther L. Jones, Ph.D Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion can help chil­dren build crit­i­cal think­ing and resilience

#6. “For decades, use of biofeed­back to help suf­fer­ers of anx­i­ety, among oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions, has large­ly been lim­it­ed to clin­i­cal set­tings with expensive—and some­what tedious—medical equip­ment. Now, with an assist from devel­op­ers of vir­tu­al-real­i­ty games, effec­tive ther­a­peu­tic biofeed­back is becom­ing more afford­able, acces­si­ble and engag­ing.” Vir­tu­al-real­i­ty gam­ing + afford­able biofeed­back = Anx­i­ety ther­a­py for all?

#7. Now comes the real chal­lenge: get­ting doc­tors to pre­scribe it, insur­ers to pay for it, kids to use it and hope­ful­ly see sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in dai­ly life. FDA clears first videogame to be pre­scribed to kids with ADHD: Endeav­or­Rx by Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs

#8. Hope you enjoy this overview by Dr. Ricar­do Gil-da-Cos­ta at Neu­ro­verse and our very own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Explore The State of Non­in­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy in 37 min­utes and 1 image

#9. Here with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Mara Dierssen, in Span­ish: Cómo min­i­mizar el impacto del Covid-19 en nue­stro cerebro

#10. Ignor­ing prob­lems does­n’t typ­i­cal­ly solve them — good to see seri­ous attempts to under­stand, detect and address chemo brain. Grow­ing research shows how two of the major can­cer treat­ments, radi­a­tion and chemother­a­py, can lead to long-term cog­ni­tive impairment

#11. “… COVID-19 may lead to any­where from 27,644 to 154,037 addi­tion­al U.S. deaths of despair, as mass unem­ploy­ment, social iso­la­tion, depres­sion and anx­i­ety dri­ve increas­es in sui­cides and drug over­dos­es.” Time to reimag­ine brain & mind care: Four imme­di­ate pri­or­i­ties to flat­ten the men­tal dis­tress curve

#12. Mov­ing beyond Either/ Or Think­ing: Anti­de­pres­sant vor­tiox­e­tine com­bined with cog­ni­tive train­ing may help delay cog­ni­tive decline

#13. Not the worst week to leave Earth, but still plen­ty of men­tal health chal­lenges in space. Request for pro­pos­als to help astro­nauts com­bat behav­ioral health chal­lenges such as stress and isolation

 

Have a good and safe summer,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Explore The State of Noninvasive Neurotechnology in 37 minutes and 1 image

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Heads-up: The record­ings for the webi­nar on The State of Non­in­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, held on May 19th, are already avail­able on YouTube. Dr. Ricar­do Gil-da-Cos­ta (above) and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (below) gave an excel­lent out­look on the brain tech indus­try, with a deep look into apps and wear­ables and the capa­bil­i­ties that human brain could achieve. We hope you enjoy the discussion.

For 19 years, Dr. Ricar­do Gil-da-Cos­ta’s pur­suit of how the mind and brain work led him to behav­ioral field stud­ies in Africa and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and neu­ro­phys­i­ol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry research from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty to the U.S. Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health and the Salk Insti­tute for Bio­log­i­cal Stud­ies. Most recent­ly, he co-found­ed and serves as C.E.O. of Neu­ro­verse, Inc., a neu­rotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that has cre­at­ed a new class of mobile brain inter­faces for health and con­sumer elec­tron­ics applications.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez runs Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm track­ing applied neu­ro­science. He is the Edi­tor-in-Chief of sem­i­nal mar­ket reports on Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Dig­i­tal Brain Health, and co-author of the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age. He enjoys serv­ing in the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Coun­cil on the Future of Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, and in the Glob­al Teacher Prize Acad­e­my run by the Varkey Foundation.

The Event in Context:

Reinventing depression treatment via transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS)

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Deirdre Lehman with Nolan Williams, who over­saw this clin­i­cal tri­al of a poten­tial treat­ment that uses tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion. In the pho­to, Williams and Lehman demon­strate how a patient is posi­tioned and the equip­ment is used. Cred­it: Steve Fisch.

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Stan­ford researchers devise treat­ment that relieved depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in small study (press release):

“A new form of mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion rapid­ly relieved symp­toms of severe depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in a small study con­duct­ed by researchers at the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine … In tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion, elec­tric cur­rents from a mag­net­ic coil placed on the scalp excite a region of the brain impli­cat­ed in depres­sion. The treat­ment, as approved by the FDA, requires [Read more…] about Rein­vent­ing depres­sion treat­ment via tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion (TMS)

McLean Hospital Corp: #16 Holder of Pervasive Neurotech Intellectual Property*

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McLean Hospital CorpMcLean Hos­pi­tal is the third old­est psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal in the Unit­ed States and is affil­i­at­ed with Har­vard Med­ical School. McLean’s research efforts in neu­ro­science and psy­chi­a­try span 66 lab­o­ra­to­ries and near­ly 400 research staff — it claims to have the largest research pro­gram of any pri­vate psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal. [Read more…] about McLean Hos­pi­tal Corp: #16 Hold­er of Per­va­sive Neu­rotech Intel­lec­tu­al Property*