Brain training seen as promising non-pharmacological method to enhance attention in healthy young adults

By SharpBrains | February 1, 2019

This brain train­ing app may help you stay focused, says new study (CNN): “Our dig­i­tal lives make con­cen­tra­tion difficult…A group of Cam­bridge uni­ver­si­ty researchers believes to have devel­oped a “fun” solu­tion to this mod­ern prob­lem. By play­ing a “brain train­ing” game, called Decoder, play­ers can increase their concentration.

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Neurofeedback or medication to treat ADHD?

By Dr. David Rabiner | October 17, 2018

___ Neu­ro­feed­back (NF) is an approach for treat­ing ADHD in which indi­vid­u­als receive real-time feed­back on their brain­wave activ­i­ty and taught to alter their typ­i­cal EEG pat­tern to one that is con­sis­tent with a more focused and atten­tive state. While con­sid­er­able research sup­ports the effec­tive­ness of neu­ro­feed­back for many chil­dren with ADHD, rel­a­tive­ly few stud­ies have…

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Growing awareness of the opportunities and risks posed by pharmacological cognitive enhancement (aka “smart drugs”)

By SharpBrains | April 3, 2015

. More research need­ed on use of ‘smart drugs’ by healthy peo­ple (Med­ical News): “Drugs such as methylphenidate and modafinil, mar­ket­ed as Rital­in and Provig­il respec­tive­ly, are used by some healthy indi­vid­u­als in order to boost their cog­ni­tive per­for­mance, despite a gen­er­al lack of knowl­edge about 

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Open question: Can coffee & Ritalin’s mental effects be delivered, safely, over a smartphone?

By SharpBrains | February 25, 2015

. Will 2015 be the year our smart­phones link up to our brains? (Pop­u­lar Sci­ence): “Thync bills itself first and fore­most as a neu­ro­science com­pa­ny. Its sole product—slated for release lat­er this year—is a smart­­phone-con­trolled wear­able device that will allow the user to active­ly alter his or her brain’s elec­tri­cal state through tran­scra­nial direct current…

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Study: Use of methylphenidate-based ADHD medication increases the risk of heart problems

By SharpBrains | August 20, 2014

ADHD med­ica­tion enhances the risk of heart prob­lems in chil­dren (Sci­ence Nordic): “The risk of devel­op­ing heart prob­lems is twice as big for chil­dren tak­ing med­i­cine for Atten­tion Deficit-Hyper­­ac­­tiv­i­­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD) when com­pared to chil­dren not receiv­ing the medicine…The study builds on data from 714,000 children 

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Use and misuse of ADHD drugs and nootropics among teenagers and toddlers

By SharpBrains | May 19, 2014

Rital­in may pose brain risks for young peo­ple with­out ADHD, study shows (Fox News): “Smart” drugs, like Rital­in, also known as nootrop­ics, are known to increase a person’s atten­tion span, mem­o­ry and abil­i­ty to stay alert. As a result, they have become increas­ing­ly abused by stu­dents seek­ing an extra edge in their stud­ies. Accord­ing to a…

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