Parkinsons

How to detect brain health problems early: Examples in Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s, anxiety and PTSD

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Hop­ing you enjoy this slid­edeck sup­port­ing a great dis­cus­sion held dur­ing the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health (March 7–9th).  Full record­ings are avail­able for pur­chase here.

9–10.30am. How to detect prob­lems ear­ly: Exam­ples in Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, Parkinson’s, anx­i­ety and PTSD

  • Dr. Sri­jan Sen, Pro­fes­sor of Depres­sion and Neu­ro­sciences at Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan
  • Jan Samzelius, Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tist of Neu­raMetrix
  • Dr. Tony Chang, Asso­ciate at Mer­ck Ventures
  • Chaired by: Dr. Dean­na Bel­sky, Asso­ciate at Dol­by Fam­i­ly Ventures

Jan Samzelius, CEO of Brainnovations Winner NeuraMetrix, encourages pioneers to focus on “simple, elegant solutions to big problems”

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What sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test last month?

Even with only a brief pre­sen­ta­tion the judges imme­di­ate­ly got the poten­tial impact of our tech­nol­o­gy to mea­sure and mon­i­tor brain health and began to think about oth­er appli­ca­tions for us – sev­er­al we had not thought about. That was fun.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Neu­raMetrix?

Typ­ing Cadence is among the strongest habit we have. If the brain is attacked by a dis­ease, the habit will begin to break – very slow­ly and in very small incre­ments. Our way of mea­sur­ing is so sen­si­tive that we can pick up changes at the lev­el of 1/100th of sec­ond – many orders of mag­ni­tude bet­ter than today’s tools.

When and how did the idea come to you?

Com­ing from data secu­ri­ty, our first idea was to use typ­ing cadence for authen­ti­ca­tion, and then were alert­ed to the brain health appli­ca­tion by an out­sider. [Read more…] about Jan Samzelius, CEO of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner Neu­raMetrix, encour­ages pio­neers to focus on “sim­ple, ele­gant solu­tions to big problems”

Next: Targeted neurotechnology to augment–perhaps even take over–neuropharmacology

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deep-brain-stimulationNeu­rotech­nol­o­gy offers new solu­tions to treat­ing brain dis­eases (Dell Tech Culture):

“A new wave of med­ical tech­nolo­gies is chang­ing the way we approach study­ing the brain and treat­ing patients suf­fer­ing from neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases and men­tal illness.

For peo­ple suf­fer­ing from Parkinson’s, epilep­sy, OCD and severe depres­sion, these tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments are [Read more…] about Next: Tar­get­ed neu­rotech­nol­o­gy to augment–perhaps even take over–neuropharmacology

Accelerating brain health research via online registries

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InternetSan Fran­cis­co-based online ‘brain reg­istry’ seeks vol­un­teers to trans­form research (San Jose Mer­cury News):

“By vol­un­teer­ing — repeat­ed­ly over time — par­tic­i­pants join a pool of research sub­jects in the new Brain Health Reg­istry, opened Tues­day, for stud­ies on brain dis­eases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkin­son’s, as well as depres­sion, post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal ail­ments. [Read more…] about Accel­er­at­ing brain health research via online registries

Medicare updates reimbursement criteria for “maintenance” therapy services

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ReimbursementA Qui­et “Sea Change” in Medicare (The New York Times):

“In Jan­u­ary, Medicare offi­cials updat­ed the agen­cy’s pol­i­cy man­u­al –the rule book for every­thing Medicare does– to erase any notion that improve­ment [Read more…] about Medicare updates reim­burse­ment cri­te­ria for “main­te­nance” ther­a­py services

Good survey of brain stimulation methods, value and limitations

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brain_stimulationStim­u­lat­ing the Brain: From If to How (The Dana Foundation):

“Recent years have brought mod­ern meth­ods of brain stim­u­la­tion into the main­stream of neu­rol­o­gy and psy­chi­a­try. But their mechanism—how exact­ly deep brain stim­u­la­tion (DBS) relieves Parkinson’s dis­ease symp­toms and how repet­i­tive tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion (rTMS) improves depres­sion, for example—remains obscure. Research [Read more…] about Good sur­vey of brain stim­u­la­tion meth­ods, val­ue and limitations