Alto Neuroscience raises $60M (equity + credit) to help fix the “trial and error” approach to psychiatric medication

Alto Neu­ro­science bags $25M for four Phase II drugs (End­points News): Anoth­er $25 mil­lion is flow­ing the way of a Cal­i­for­nia biotech attempt­ing to fix the “tri­al and error” sys­tem in neu­ro­science drug R&D. Alto Neu­ro­science picked up the cap­i­tal from Alpha Wave Ven­tures via an exten­sion to its Series B, bring­ing total equi­ty raised…

Read More

On mental fitness beliefs, lifestyles and new tools like apps, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, “brain age gaps” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun cou­ple of math brain teasers. #1. Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it Beliefs mat­ter. #2. “Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics” vs. “Men­tal health apps”: A growing…

Read More

Systematic review calls for early targeted interventions to help babies and toddlers with cerebral palsy harness time window with maximum brain plasticity

Ear­ly tar­get­ed inter­ven­tion ‘crit­i­cal’ for improv­ing out­comes in cere­bral pal­sy (Healio): Ear­ly inter­ven­tion for chil­dren with or at high risk for cere­bral pal­sy should begin “as soon as pos­si­ble” in order to build on “a crit­i­cal devel­op­men­tal time,” accord­ing to results of a sys­tem­at­ic review pub­lished in JAMA Pediatrics.

Read More

Tip: To manage stress, sleep better. To sleep better, keep a good routine and manage stress.

Dis­rupt­ed rou­tines and wor­ries about coro­n­avirus have made it hard­er for us to sleep this year. For exam­ple, reports sug­gest there was a 15% increase in pre­scrip­tions for sleep med­ica­tion pre­scrip­tions at the begin­ning of the pan­dem­ic in the U.S., and a 37% increase in insom­nia in Chi­na. Impor­tant­ly, if you’ve been feel­ing out of sorts…

Read More

The latest on Brain Health and Resilience, plus a few fun Brain Teasers

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and tips, com­bined with fun brain teasers. #1. To cel­e­brate this quite-chal­leng­ing Thanks­giv­ing, here are five fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far. It is always good to learn more about (and appre­ci­ate) that most pre­cious resource…

Read More