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placebo

FDA-approved, Cybin-sponsored clinicial trial to measure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Kernel Flow neuroimaging helmet

November 22, 2021 by SharpBrains

Kernel’s Brain-Imag­ing Hel­met Approved For Clin­i­cal Tri­al On Patients Using Ket­a­mine (Forbes):

The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion has approved a clin­i­cal tri­al using a neu­roimag­ing hel­met made by Los Ange­les-based Ker­nel to track what hap­pens in the brain when a human takes a psy­che­del­ic dose of ket­a­mine. [Read more…] about FDA-approved, Cybin-spon­sored clin­i­cial tri­al to mea­sure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Ker­nel Flow neu­roimag­ing helmet

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain-Imaging, Cerebral Cortex, Clinical-Trial, Consciousness, Cybin, drug development, FDA, human cognition, Kernel, ketamine, neuroimaging, neuroimaging helmet, neurological activity, placebo, psychedelic

Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

August 27, 2020 by Alvaro Fernandez

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study:

#1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a placebo

#2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found to increase AD risk in the most com­pre­hen­sive evi­dence review to date,
  • Five are “neck up:” Low­er edu­ca­tion lev­el, Low­er cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty, Head trau­ma, Repeat­ed episodes of depres­sion, High-lev­els of long-term stress.
  • Five are “neck down:” Hyper­ten­sion in mid-life, Ortho­sta­t­ic hypoten­sion, Dia­betes, High BMI, High lev­els of homo­cys­teine. Sys­tem­at­ic review finds ten lifestyle fac­tors that clear­ly impact the prob­a­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)

#3. “The health­i­est peo­ple are the ones who grow with age and expe­ri­ence; even in times of trou­ble like these.” — Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, MD, Pres­i­dent of the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion. On Stress, Yoga Med­i­ta­tion, and The Evo­lu­tion Revolution

#4. “Accep­tance that Alzheimer’s dis­ease is a lifestyle dis­ease, lit­tle dif­fer­ent from oth­er age-relat­ed dis­eases, that is the sum of a life­time is the most impor­tant break­through of the decade.” — George Per­ry, PhD, Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. High­er body mass index (BMI) linked to low­er blood sup­ply to the brain in large neu­roimag­ing study

#5. “Atten­tion is a scarce resource. Think about your atten­tion­al focus as the beam of a light. If the light is on an object it can­not be on oth­er objects at the same time with the same inten­si­ty … Although we typ­i­cal­ly have the feel­ing that mul­ti­task­ing saves us time, it is often not the case.” Sim­ple, quick brain teas­er to test the lim­its of multitasking

#6. If it appears to rotate, RT ? Fun opti­cal illu­sion to tease your mind

#7. Every cloud has a sil­ver lin­ing: How and when will the telemed­i­cine surge reach men­tal healthcare?

#8. Not a minute too soon: Mag­el­lan Health is test­ing biofeed­back videogame Might­i­er to help chil­dren bet­ter self-reg­u­late stress

#9. “In a time when emo­tions like stress, anx­i­ety, bore­dom, and anger are hard to avoid, a new study sug­gests that a par­tic­u­lar med­i­ta­tion prac­tice can help us face them.” Study: Med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, both for­mal and infor­mal, helps devel­op equa­nim­i­ty over time

#10. Ever since dis­cov­er­ing Bar­bara Arrow­smith-Young’s life tra­jec­to­ry via Nor­main Doidge’s fan­tas­tic book The Brain That Changes Itself, we have been impressed by her cre­ativ­i­ty, sta­mi­na and courage. Com­ing soon: Vir­tu­al World Tour at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, edu­ca­tion and learn­ing difficulties

#11. “Neur­al sig­nals will be used to devel­op algo­rithms that will help researchers deter­mine the opti­mal brain state under which indi­vid­u­als can receive infor­ma­tion. From there, the team will deter­mine the most effec­tive means of enhanc­ing the sub­jects’ abil­i­ty to intake and process infor­ma­tion. This could range from non-inva­sive neuromodulation—or brain stimulation—techniques to the use of aug­ment­ed real­i­ty to alter per­ceived envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.” Air Force announces research plat­form to har­ness closed-loop neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and accel­er­ate learn­ing “on the fly”

#12. Good to hear that “ensur­ing the pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty of study par­tic­i­pants’ data is a high pri­or­i­ty for both UCLA and Apple. UCLA will process and main­tain study data in a secure envi­ron­ment … UCLA and Apple will ana­lyze the data only after they are cod­ed and stripped of names and oth­er con­tact infor­ma­tion.” UCLA launch­es major men­tal health study col­lect­ing & ana­lyz­ing data from Apple wear­ables to bet­ter under­stand depres­sion and anxiety

#13. Flex­i­bil­i­ty is good except when it isn’t: Study finds how sci­en­tists can reach dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions ana­lyz­ing the same brain scans

#14. “I have so much to accom­plish today that I must med­i­tate for two hours instead of one” — Gand­hi, as quot­ed in Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy September,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on behalf of the Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Alzheimer’s Disease, Apple, attentional focus, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, brain, brain health, Brain Teasers, brain-teaser, meditation, mental healthcare, neural signals, neuroimaging, neuromodulation, Neurotechnology, non-invasive, optical illusion, placebo, Placebo-Effect, research, Stress, tease your mind, telemedicine, UCLA

Study: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

August 13, 2020 by SharpBrains

Place­bos Prove Pow­er­ful, Even When Peo­ple Know They’re Tak­ing One, New Study Sug­gests (MSU release):

How much of a treat­ment is mind over mat­ter? It is well doc­u­ment­ed that peo­ple often feel bet­ter after tak­ing a treat­ment with­out active ingre­di­ents sim­ply because they believe it’s real — known as the place­bo effect.

A team of researchers from Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan and Dart­mouth Col­lege is the first to demon­strate that place­bos reduce brain mark­ers of emo­tion­al dis­tress even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing one. [Read more…] about Study: The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a placebo

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: active ingredient, clinical disorders, neural, neural measure, neuroplasticity, non-deceptive, non-deceptive placebos, placebo, Placebo-Effect, psychobiological, sugar-pill

Large study finds that placebo works as well as vitamin D supplements to prevent depression and improve mood

August 6, 2020 by Alvaro Fernandez

Large Study Con­firms Vit­a­min D Does Not Reduce Risk of Depres­sion in Adults (Mass Gen­er­al press release):

Vit­a­min D sup­ple­men­ta­tion does not pro­tect against depres­sion in mid­dle-age or old­er adult­hood accord­ing results from one of the largest ever stud­ies of its kind … “There was no sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit from the sup­ple­ment for this pur­pose. It did not pre­vent depres­sion or improve mood,” says Olivia I. Okereke, MD, MS, of the Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (MGH) Psy­chi­a­try Department.

[Read more…] about Large study finds that place­bo works as well as vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments to pre­vent depres­sion and improve mood

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: adults, brain health, Brain-Fitness, cholecalciferol, depression, improve brain fitness, improve-brain-health, middle-age, mood, neuroplasticity, older-adults, placebo, supplementation, VITAL, Vitamin D supplementation, vitamin D3, vitamin-D

Study finds mixed results of Adderall as cognitive enhancer (seems to boost emotion more than cognition)

April 15, 2020 by Dr. David Rabiner

Over the past 15 years there has been grow­ing aware­ness that many col­lege stu­dents with­out an ADHD diag­no­sis use ADHD drugs. On some cam­pus­es, rates of self-report­ed non-med­ical use have exceed­ed 30% of students.

The pri­ma­ry rea­son stu­dents report tak­ing ADHD drugs is to enhance their aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. And, the strong major­i­ty of stu­dents — over 80% in a study I con­duct­ed — believe it is help­ful for this purpose.

Fur­ther­more, stu­dents who report prob­lems with atten­tion are more like­ly to report non-med­ical use than oth­er stu­dents; this sug­gests that some self-med­icate to address their per­ceived atten­tion dif­fi­cul­ties. [Read more…] about Study finds mixed results of Adder­all as cog­ni­tive enhancer (seems to boost emo­tion more than cognition)

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: academic-performance., Adderall, adhd, ADHD-drugs, attention, cognition, cognitive-functioning, college, college students, emotion, mental health, neurocognitive, neurocognitive functioning, placebo, psychiatric medications, reading comprehension, reading fluency, Working-memory

On “ethical placebos,” Medicine, and Mind/ Body interactions: A book review

April 13, 2016 by Greater Good Science Center

Cure_bookWhen I was 10 years old, I hat­ed doing the dish­es. In an attempt to talk my par­ents out of mak­ing me do this hat­ed chore, I pre­tend­ed to be ill by hang­ing my head, sigh­ing, snif­fling, and walk­ing lethar­gi­cal­ly to my bed­room, all to no avail—I still had to do those dishes.

But, the next day, I woke up with the flu —a 104-degree fever and stom­ach pains to match. Boy, were my par­ents sur­prised! And, so was I. But, how many of us have had sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences, where our minds seemed to some­how impact our bod­ies in weird, unex­plain­able ways? How many of us have made doc­tors’ appoint­ments only to watch our fevers drop or held our chil­dren close and stopped their cough­ing fits? Clear­ly, some­thing is going on, isn’t it? [Read more…] about On “eth­i­cal place­bos,” Med­i­cine, and Mind/ Body inter­ac­tions: A book review

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: adhd, body, book, book review, healing, health, healthcare, irritable bowel syndrome, longevity, medicine, meditation, mental capacities, mind, Mind/Body, mindfulness, physical-health, placebo, psychological health, Stress

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