pervasive

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

Why the Future of Brain Enhancement and Mental Health is Digital and Pervasive

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It was a great plea­sure to share lat­est data and insights with a fan­tas­tic com­mu­ni­ty of researchers, engi­neers, inno­va­tors and investors, host­ed by the Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Cen­tre for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy in Lon­don. Hope you enjoy the slides!

Talk descrip­tion: As seen in patent and invest­ment trends, research find­ings and consumer/patient behav­iors, Men­tal Health and Brain Enhance­ment are rapid­ly evolv­ing in trans­for­ma­tion­al ways which some call “empow­er­ing” and some “con­tro­ver­sial.” Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, Edi­tor-in-Chief of inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm Sharp­Brains, will present and dis­cuss the lat­est mar­ket data and fore­casts on how dig­i­tal plat­forms are poised to rev­o­lu­tion­ize brain & men­tal health diag­nos­tics, mon­i­tor­ing, ther­a­pies and enhancement.

More pub­lic events Here and upcom­ing vir­tu­al con­fer­ence Here.

Regulating and helping shape the evolving phenomenon of Direct-to-Consumer Neuroscience

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We’re proud to share that our CEO and Edi­tor-in-Chief Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a fas­ci­nat­ing and time­ly 2‑day meet­ing, host­ed by The Ban­bury Cen­ter at Cold Spring Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ry under the theme The evolv­ing phe­nom­e­non of Direct-to-Con­sumer Neu­ro­science, to help iden­ti­fy and address key open regulatory/ eth­i­cal issues relat­ed to the growth of per­va­sive neu­rotech­nolo­gies and dig­i­tal brain health plat­forms offered/ sold direct­ly to consumers.

The event is off-the-record so we won’t be able to blog about it, but here are some resources if inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the gen­er­al con­text for the event: [Read more…] about Reg­u­lat­ing and help­ing shape the evolv­ing phe­nom­e­non of Direct-to-Con­sumer Neuroscience

Final days to submit scalable & non-pharmacological Brain Health proposals to MIT Solve’s Brain Health Challenge

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Insuf­fi­cient brain health­care is one of the most per­va­sive and mul­ti-faceted prob­lems our world faces today. From the young to the old, the rich to the poor, those liv­ing in dense cities to iso­lat­ed farm­lands, any­one can be affect­ed by brain health prob­lems. Yet, cur­rent solu­tions to this prob­lem are lim­it­ed. While some inno­va­tions have made sig­nif­i­cant strides towards improved brain health, there is a press­ing need for stronger pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of cog­ni­tive health­care and more proac­tive inno­va­tion towards pre­ven­ta­tive treat­ments. [Read more…] about Final days to sub­mit scal­able & non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal Brain Health pro­pos­als to MIT Solve’s Brain Health Challenge

Applying to MIT Solve? Here are 4 Ways, and 20 Resources, to Upgrade Brain Health in the Digital Age

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Insuf­fi­cient brain health­care is one of the most per­va­sive and mul­ti-faceted prob­lems our world faces today. From the young to the old, the rich to the poor, those liv­ing in dense cities to iso­lat­ed farm­lands, any­one can be affect­ed by brain health prob­lems. Yet, cur­rent solu­tions to this prob­lem are lim­it­ed. While some inno­va­tions have made sig­nif­i­cant strides towards improved brain health, there is a press­ing need for stronger pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of cog­ni­tive health­care and more proac­tive inno­va­tion towards pre­ven­ta­tive treatments.

Here’s what the new MIT Solve 2017 Glob­al Chal­lenge says about brain health:

“Brain and men­tal well-being are crit­i­cal to the health and hap­pi­ness of the 7.5 bil­lion peo­ple who inhab­it our planet…shifting the con­ver­sa­tion from treat­ing brain dis­eases to improv­ing well-being may begin to dis­solve the cul­tur­al stig­ma that makes it dif­fi­cult for many to seek help.”

Con­tin­ue read­ing the arti­cle Four Ways to Upgrade Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age, by Sharp­Brains’ Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, with guide­lines and resources to:

  1. Pri­or­i­tize scal­able solu­tions for all
  2. Har­ness life­long neuroplasticity
  3. Har­ness per­va­sive tech­nolo­gies and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)
  4. Edu­cate users and encour­age human-cen­tered innovation

Neurotech gone pervasive

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This Is Your Brain on Busi­ness (For­tune):

“…here’s a sign of how quick­ly things move in neu­ro­science: Ear­li­er this year, anoth­er para­plegic man, Rodri­go Hüb­n­er Mendes, became the first per­son to dri­ve a race car sole­ly with his mind.

Some might even argue that mind con­trolled dri­ving is not as impres­sive as mak­ing par­a­lyzed peo­ple move their limbs—since for neu­ro­sci­en­tists, con­trol­ling objects thanks to cut­ting-edge brain-com­put­er inter­faces has become quite com­mon. What is note­wor­thy in Hüb­n­er Mendes’ dri­ving per­for­mance is that [Read more…] about Neu­rotech gone pervasive