Update on the aducanumab (Aduhelm) saga, retirement, financial advice, cognitive health, excessive worrying, neurotech, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, pro­vid­ing this time a sum­ma­ry of the saga around the FDA approval of adu­canum­ab (Aduhelm) as a sup­posed treat­ment for Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, plus a range of time­ly research find­ings and resources for life­long brain health. First, below are some key reads to nav­i­gate “prob­a­bly the worst drug approval…

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Prescription software firm Pear Therapeutics to go public via $1.6 billion SPAC deal, harnessing 3 FDA-authorized products and 14 candidates

Pear Ther­a­peu­tics to Go Pub­lic in Rough­ly $1.6 Bil­lion SPAC Deal (The Wall Street Jour­nal): Med­ical tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Pear Ther­a­peu­tics Inc. has agreed to go pub­lic by merg­ing with a blank-check com­pa­ny with ties to the Pritzk­er Vlock Fam­i­ly Office, bet­ting on the grow­ing role of pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics. The pro­posed merg­er would give the…

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On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fit­ness. #1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study :-) Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in researching…

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Ohio joins Indiana and Kentucky in funding Pear Therapeutics’ digital addiction treatments

Ohio is third state to fund Pear’s dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to tack­le addic­tion (phar­mafo­rum): The com­pa­ny has been push­ing for more reim­burse­ment of its three mar­ket­ed DTx prod­ucts in the US fol­low­ing a first FDA approval in 2017. Pear said that the Ohio Depart­ment of Men­tal Health and Addic­tion Ser­vices (OhioMHAS) and Recov­ery­Ohio are pro­vid­ing access to…

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From digital therapeutics to personalized mental health solutions: Pear Therapeutics expands platform via partnerships with Empatica, etectRx, KeyWise, and Winterlight

Pear Ther­a­peu­tics Expands Plat­form with Dig­i­tal Bio­mark­ers, Machine Learn­ing Algo­rithms and Sen­­sor-Based Tech­nolo­gies (press release): Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc. announced today that it has entered into agree­ments with mul­ti­ple tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, includ­ing Empat­i­ca Inc., etec­tRx, Inc., and Key­Wise, Inc. The new tech­nolo­gies com­ple­ment the voice-based bio­mark­ers pre­vi­ous­ly licensed from Win­terlight Labs. These new agree­ments bol­ster Pear’s…

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Update: Understanding Brain Health via Cosmological Health, and vice versa

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing find­ings, books and resources for life­long brain health. #1. “The human brain (sec­tion; left image above) func­tions thanks to its wide neu­ronal net­work that is deemed to con­tain approx­i­mate­ly 69 bil­lion neu­rons. On the oth­er hand, the observ­able uni­verse (sec­tion sim­u­la­tion; right image) can count…

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