precision psychiatry

Wel­come to the last 2022 edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a few select­ed brain health news and fun teasers to chal­lenge your brain and help us all think out­side the box.

#1. “Every­one agrees that Google Glass failed when it came to mar­ket, but to me, it’s a sym­bol of hope … It inspired peo­ple to think beyond tra­di­tion­al ways of mov­ing about our envi­ron­ment. Instead of look­ing down at a device, we could look out at the world and have an over­lay of dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion. It was one of the first steps in physical–digital con­ver­gence that we are see­ing today through­out many indus­tries. And as some­one who has cre­at­ed many inven­tions that nev­er left the lab or were too ear­ly for the mar­ket, I love the fact that Glass came out at all!” — wise words by neu­rotech entre­pre­neur Dr. Cori Lath­an in her new (and excel­lent) book. See Tech­nol­o­gy as a bridge in time: Shap­ing the future of brain health via today’s innovations–including those that “fail”

#2. “Some peo­ple want to do cog­ni­tive train­ing while mov­ing rather than sit­ting down, and that real­ly spoke to me as a pos­si­bil­i­ty for real ben­e­fits giv­en anec­do­tal sto­ries about games like ‘Dance Dance Rev­o­lu­tion.’” — Joaquin A. Anguera, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at UCSF and direc­tor of Neuroscape‘s Clin­i­cal Divi­sion. See Study: A com­bined cog­ni­tive-phys­i­cal train­ing approach may enhance both mind and body as we age

#3. “Giv­en that ketamine’s rapid action and unex­pect­ed dis­so­cia­tive effects make it a poten­tial­ly worth­while option for treat­ing men­tal health prob­lems, we are on a mis­sion to unpack this mys­tery, at the cross­roads between phar­ma­col­o­gy and neu­ro­science.” See Study iden­ti­fies cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of ket­a­mine in patients with treat­ment-resis­tant depression

#4. “The grat­i­tude writ­ing group main­tained grat­i­tude lev­els and decreased stress and neg­a­tive affect at one-month post-inter­ven­tion” — that main­te­nance aspect is espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing. See Thanks­giv­ing works: Grat­i­tude jour­nal­ing seen to low­er stress and neg­a­tive cog­ni­tive processes

#5. Impres­sive new funding–especially giv­en mar­ket conditions–with a goal to iden­ti­fy “brain bio­mark­ers by ana­lyz­ing EEG activ­i­ty, behav­ioral task per­for­mance, wear­able data, genet­ics, and oth­er fac­tors to match each patient with the right Alto drug.” See Pre­ci­sion psy­chi­a­try pio­neer Alto Neu­ro­science rais­es $35M to advance dig­i­tal bio­mark­er-to-treat­ment platform

#6. Some bad news. See The FDA ends pre­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (Pre-Cert) pilot pro­gram, say­ing new author­i­ty required to reg­u­late soft­ware as a med­ical device (SaMD)

#7. And some great news: “(Péter Hudomi­et, study’s lead author) said it’s also pos­si­ble that, giv­en numer­ous stud­ies being released on steps to take to avoid demen­tia, some of the decline may be attrib­uted to peo­ple heed­ing such advice.” See Study finds sharp decrease (near­ly one-third) in the preva­lence of demen­tia among those 65+ in the Unit­ed States

#8. Final­ly, here are a few brain teasers to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes and to help us all think out­side the box.

 

Have a healthy and won­der­ful 2023!