riddles

On cognitive-physical training, brain biomarkers, dementia, ketamine, brain teasers, riddles and more

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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!

 

Let’s Thank our unique Human Brains and Minds with a few family-friendly riddles

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Q: What is a sure way of sus­tain­ing a friend­ly and socia­ble feel­ing towards the whole world?
A: Con­sort only with strangers.

Q: What beats regret­ting what you said?
A: Trea­sur­ing what you DIDN’T say.

Q: What does, “you must come and vis­it us some­time!” actu­al­ly mean?
A: Noth­ing at all. How­ev­er, if you take it seri­ous­ly, be ready for the what-are-you-doing-here welcome!

– Kei­th Per­reur-Lloyd is an Anglo-French com­pos­er and musi­cian cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Spain. You can learn more about his clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions here.

More fun ways to challenge our brains and minds:

Study: Across all ideological groups, higher cognitive ability and intellectual humility predicts support for free speech

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Free­dom of Speech: A Right for Every­body, or Only for Like-Mind­ed Peo­ple? (Het­ero­dox Academy):

Free­dom of speech is often con­sid­ered key to a well-func­tion­al democ­ra­cy. In many coun­tries, free­dom of speech is con­sid­ered a more impor­tant demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ue than reg­u­lar elec­tions. But do peo­ple gen­uine­ly believe in the virtues of open debates by sup­port­ing free­dom of speech for every social group? Or do they sup­port free speech only for their own groups? In a recent­ly pub­lished paper in Social Psy­cho­log­i­cal and Per­son­al­i­ty Sci­ence, we aimed to answer these ques­tions, and we sought to explore whether high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty was asso­ci­at­ed with more prin­ci­pled posi­tions on free speech. We expect­ed that peo­ple with high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties would be more inclined to embrace the open exchange of ideas, where­in view­points can be scru­ti­nized and chal­lenged in order to fos­ter informed deci­sion mak­ing and knowledge…

[Read more…] about Study: Across all ide­o­log­i­cal groups, high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty and intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty pre­dicts sup­port for free speech

Update: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter.

#1. First of all, it’s not all bad news this month. Study finds that mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain

#2. And, talk about per­son­al­ized med­i­cine! This fas­ci­nat­ing study show­ing how brain imag­ing (fMRI) + machine learn­ing + inten­sive, non-inva­sive neu­rostim­u­la­tion = tar­get­ed treat­ments that can max­i­mize effi­ca­cy and min­i­mize side effects: Rein­vent­ing depres­sion treat­ment via tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion (TMS)

#3. Also, not a minute too soon … Med­i­ta­tion apps have gone main­stream in the covid-19 era and Dig­i­tal health start-ups raised a record $3.1 bil­lion in Q1; focus will like­ly evolve from providers to con­sumers and employers

#4. Fyi, a very time­ly vir­tu­al event com­ing Tues­day April 28th, online: Explore strate­gies and tools to boost men­tal well­be­ing dur­ing (and after) Covid-19

#5. Now, “While Pear has an advan­tage over the com­pe­ti­tion in that its prod­ucts are backed by ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­als, physi­cians and health plans are still work­ing out how to pre­scribe and pay for dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics.” The FDA clears Som­ryst, Pear’s dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat chron­ic insomnia

#6. Net net, now is the time for indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive action to shift to a health­i­er “new nor­mal” for all: 3 ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19 (in Span­ish: Tres hábitos de higiene men­tal para vencer al COVID-19 y crear un futuro más salud­able). Want more? Enjoy these Three tips for wise minds to calm coro­n­avirus anxiety

#7. A small but impor­tant study for that hope­ful near future when uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges reopen their doors: Study finds mixed results of Adder­all as cog­ni­tive enhancer (seems to boost emo­tion more than cognition)

#8. But, first things first. “The Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” reached #1 on the pop charts in 1977. Maybe it was the beat, maybe it was John Travolta’s danc­ing. Or maybe it’s that the Gibb broth­ers’ cen­tral lyric is quite lit­er­al­ly always play­ing in our head. Keep­ing us safe —that is, “stayin’ alive ”— is the pri­ma­ry mis­sion of the brain”

Enough with coro­n­avirus out­break. Any­thing else going on? Yes!

#9. The Right to Per­son­al Iden­ti­ty. The Right to Free Will. The Right to Men­tal Pri­va­cy. The Right to Equal Access to Men­tal Aug­men­ta­tion. The Right to Pro­tec­tion from Algo­rith­mic Bias. Will these five Neu­roR­ights help har­ness emerg­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies for the com­mon good?

#10. “Today, the sci­en­tif­ic inves­ti­ga­tion of tran­scen­dent expe­ri­ences is, in my view, one of the most excit­ing fron­tiers in the sci­ence of well-being.” Tran­scend­ing Maslow’s famous “hier­ar­chy of needs” through Maslow’s own research on Peak Experiences

#11. You CAN have your cake and eat it too: Here’s a brain teas­er to stim­u­late your men­tal imagery, spa­tial rota­tion … and appetite

#12. Ques­tion: My first thought after con­grat­u­lat­ing myself on being so clever about some­thing? Tease your brain with these eight fun rid­dles…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a great month of May,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

Tease your brain with these eight fun riddles

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Q: My first thought after con­grat­u­lat­ing myself on being so clever about something?
A: “How can I have been so dumb about that for so long!”

Q: Who is hard­er to for­give than any­one, for tru­ly dumb behaviour?
A:  [Read more…] about Tease your brain with these eight fun riddles

Latest brain research, tools and teasers to think outside the mental health status quo box

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a range of  research find­ings, resources, brain teasers and rid­dles to help trans­late emerg­ing neu­ro­science into real-world appli­ca­tions and improve our col­lec­tive brain & men­tal health.

New thinking:

New research:

New tools:

Fun brain teasers:

 

Have a great month of March,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team