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…

Read More

On becoming a psychotherapy pioneer and bestselling writer: A fantastic memoir by, and window into, the unique mind of Irvin D. Yalom

If you’re inter­est­ed in the life of the mind, here you have an awe­some win­dow into a unique mind — a pro­found mem­oir by best­selling writer and psy­chother­a­py pio­neer Irvin D. Yalom. It was pub­lished back in 2017 but, like good wine, it has aged well and is more rel­e­vant today than ever. Irvin D. Yalom,…

Read More

Neuromodulation device Relivion gets FDA clearance to help patients with major depression who don’t benefit from antidepressant medications

Neu­rolief wins FDA break­through nod for wear­able neu­ro­mod for depres­sion (Mass Device): Neu­rolief announced today that it received FDA break­through device des­ig­na­tion for its Reliv­ion DP sys­tem for treat­ing major depres­sion. Reliv­ion is a wear­able, non-inva­­sive, mul­ti-chan­nel brain neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion device designed as an adjunc­tive treat­ment to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­age­ment of major depres­sive dis­or­der (MDD) in adults…

Read More

Initial study finds promise and limitations in using virtual reality (VR) to treat ADHD

___ Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of exist­ing evi­­dence-based ADHD treat­ments, i.e., stim­u­lant med­ica­tion and behav­ior ther­a­py — research on nov­el inter­ven­tion approach­es con­tin­ues to be impor­tant. Cog­ni­tive train­ing is one such approach that has been sug­gest­ed as a poten­tial adjunct or even replace­ment for med­ica­tion treat­ment. While cog­ni­tive train­ing takes dif­fer­ent forms, e.g., com­put­er­ized atten­tion training,…

Read More

Study: Combining aerobic and mental training can significantly improve mental and cognitive health

(Edi­tor’s Note: Hat tip to co-author Tj Shors for bring­ing this fas­ci­nat­ing new study to our atten­tion) “It is wide­ly accept­ed that aer­o­bic exer­cise and med­i­ta­tion train­ing are use­ful behav­ioral ther­a­pies for reme­di­at­ing clin­i­cal symp­toms of depres­sion. How­ev­er, no study to date has assessed the com­bined effects of the two behav­ioral inter­ven­tions. Here, we present data indi­cat­ing that 

Read More