On physical activity, neuroplasticity, depression, screen time, neuromodulation and more

By SharpBrains | October 29, 2021

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time eight sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a few fun brain teasers. #1. Study finds ulti­mate hack to pro­tect teen brains from harm­ful screen time: Exer­cise (and good role-mod­­el­ing): “Girls who spent less than an hour on screens and boys who spent less than…

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Dr. Judith Beck on the future of cognitive therapy and psychotherapy

By SharpBrains | October 11, 2021

Dr. Awais Aftab: What do you think the future of psy­chother­a­py is? What would you like it to be? Dr. Judith Beck: A num­ber of years ago, a col­league asked my dad whether he expect­ed cog­ni­tive ther­a­py to even­tu­al­ly dom­i­nate the field of psy­chother­a­py. He respond­ed, “I hope good ther­a­py even­tu­al­ly dom­i­nates the field of psychotherapy.…

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Debunking four myths about decision-making capacity to keep Britney Spears and others safe

By The Conversation | August 9, 2021

Brit­ney Spears’ impas­sioned remarks in court have raised many ques­tions about con­ser­va­tor­ships, includ­ing when they’re nec­es­sary and whether they effec­tive­ly pro­tect someone’s best inter­ests. When one los­es the capac­i­ty to make deci­sions for one­self the court appoints a guardian, or con­ser­va­tor, to make those deci­sions. Appoint­ing some­one to make deci­sions about per­son­al and finan­cial matters…

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Study finds MDMA-assisted therapy to be safe and highly effective to treat severe PTSD

By SharpBrains | May 18, 2021

The First Phase 3 Suc­cess for Psy­che­delics Will Pave the Way for an Indus­try (Bar­ron’s): Post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der is a crip­pling, hard-to-treat psy­chi­atric afflic­tion. Amer­i­ca spends bil­lions of dol­lars year­ly just on the vet­er­ans who suf­fer from PTSD. So it’s heart­en­ing to see the report of a promis­ing new treat­ment, pub­lished Mon­day in Nature Medicine.

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On Brain Awareness Week, mental health innovation, tDCS, biofeedback, psychedelics, and more

By SharpBrains | February 26, 2021

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, start­ing with some ideas to get in the mood for Brain Aware­ness Week next month (March 15–21st). May BAW 2021 be a hun­dred times more upbeat than last year’s… #1. Sev­en brain teasers and a neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty pod­cast to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2021 #2. Imag­ine what this capability…

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Next: Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy?

By SharpBrains | February 4, 2021

How ecsta­sy and psilo­cy­bin are shak­ing up psy­chi­a­try (Nature): … The Impe­r­i­al study was one of a spate of clin­i­cal tri­als launched over the past few years using illic­it psy­che­del­ic drugs such as psilo­cy­bin, lyser­gic acid diethy­lamide (LSD) and MDMA (3,4‑methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as mol­ly or ecsta­sy) to treat men­­tal-health dis­or­ders, gen­er­al­ly with the close…

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