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AI-enabled chatbot Wysa receives FDA Breakthrough Device designation for patients with chronic pain, depression and anxiety

June 6, 2022 by SharpBrains

AI Behav­ior Health Chat­bot App Fast-Tracked by FDA (Psy­chol­o­gy Today):

Recent­ly the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) grant­ed break­through device des­ig­na­tion to Wysa’s AI-based dig­i­tal men­tal health con­ver­sa­tion­al agent that deliv­ers cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) via a smart­phone to adults suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and chron­ic mus­cu­loskele­tal pain [Read more…] about AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, artificial intelligence, CBT, chronic musculoskeletal pain, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, depression, digital mental health, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, mental health industry, smartphone, Wysa

Welcome to the Ultimate Neuroscience Lab: Your Smartphone

September 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time six sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a fun illusion.

#1. Top 10 Men­tal Health Inno­va­tions to Watch: Spe­cial SciAm/ WEF report

Hop­ing you enjoy the great series over at Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can and espe­cial­ly #7, titled Wel­come to the Ulti­mate Neu­ro­science Lab: Your Smart­phone, by Emory neu­roethi­cist Karen Rom­melfanger and our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez.

#2. Five thoughts to think about when think­ing about the speed of thought

The time it takes for all thoughts to occur is ulti­mate­ly shaped by the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the neu­rons and the net­works involved. Many things influ­ence the speed at which infor­ma­tion flows through the sys­tem, but three key fac­tors are: dis­tance, myeli­na­tion, complexity,

#3. Study: Self-guid­ed sleep app Sleepio, com­bined with stan­dard care for depres­sion and anx­i­ety, deliv­ers bet­ter out­comes than stan­dard care alone

“This eval­u­a­tion revealed sig­nif­i­cant val­ue in intro­duc­ing an evi­dence-based dig­i­tal sleep inter­ven­tion at scale with­in a clin­i­cal men­tal health ser­vice,” researchers from Big Health and Oxford Health NHS Foun­da­tion Trust conclude.

#4. On uncer­tain­ty, stress, emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, and carpe diem

“These find­ings from three stud­ies with diverse sam­ples and method­olo­gies under­score an upside to the specter of uncer­tain­ty: it can cause peo­ple to savor the pos­i­tives of the present.”

#5. Study finds ADHD is asso­ci­at­ed with dementia

“Specif­i­cal­ly, par­ents of an ADHD child have a 34% high­er risk of demen­tia and 55% high­er risk of Alzheimer’s, the results showed. Grand­par­ents have about an 11% increased risk of either condition.”

#6. Study: Few­er than 1% of geri­atric patients with cog­ni­tive com­plaints met Aduhelm research tri­al cri­te­ria. What can we expect about its real-world safety?

As the researchers point out, “It is thus clear how the result­ing gap between the research and “real world” fields is mas­sive.” We do have the impres­sion that the Aduhelm FDA saga is far from over.

#7. Quick brain teas­er: What do you see? And, can you unsee it?

Have a minute? Give it a try 🙂

 

Wish­ing you and yours a hap­py and healthy month of October,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, Aduhelm, brain-teaser, cognitive, cognitive complaints, dementia, emotion regulation, lifelong mental health, lifelong-brain-health, myelination, Neurons, neuroscience lab, quick brain teaser, Sleepio, smartphone

Mindstrong Health raises $100M to transform how we measure and promote mental health

May 26, 2020 by SharpBrains

Mind­strong scores $100M to mon­i­tor well­ness via smart­phone behav­iors (Mobi­Health News):

This morn­ing dig­i­tal men­tal health plat­form Mind­strong scored a whop­ping $100 mil­lion in Series C funding.

While Mind­strong has a his­to­ry of sol­id fund­ing rounds, this amount will more than dou­ble its total fund­ing. In 2017 it got its first $14 mil­lion cash infu­sion. That was fol­lowed by a $15 mil­lion Series B fund­ing round in June of 2018, which got a $31 mil­lion add-on in Jan­u­ary of 2019, bring­ing the company’s total fund­ing to just under $60 mil­lion before this news.

The com­pa­ny was first found­ed in 2014, but it made a splash in 2017 when for­mer NIMH direc­tor Dr. Thomas Insel left his posi­tion at Ver­i­ly to take on the role as pres­i­dent at Mind­strong. Insel is still involved in the com­pa­ny today in an advi­so­ry role…The tech­nol­o­gy also has a dig­i­tal bio­mark­er com­po­nent. This can track a patient’s smart­phone behav­iors. While the start­up will not see what a patient is doing on their phone, it can mon­i­tor how a patient taps, scrolls and types. It can look for indi­ca­tors of stress, depres­sion or oth­er men­tal health factors.

[Read more…] about Mind­strong Health rais­es $100M to trans­form how we mea­sure and pro­mote men­tal health

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: digital biomarkers, measure mental health, mental health, Mindstrong Health, promote mental health, smartphone, Thomas Insel

Portable brain assessment device by Headsafe secures 510(k) FDA clearance

May 14, 2020 by SharpBrains

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FDA Clears Nurocheck, Portable Device to Quick­ly Assess Brain Health (MS News Today):

“A portable device that can quick­ly mea­sure elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty in the brain and relay it to doc­tors via a smart­phone app, called the Nurochek sys­tem, has been cleared by the Unit­ed States Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) for use as a med­ical device. [Read more…] about Portable brain assess­ment device by Head­safe secures 510(k) FDA clearance

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: 510(k) clearance, app, brain, brain health technology, brain-assessment, EEG, electrical activity, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, Headsafe, neurological testing, Nurochek, portable, smartphone

Verily and LivaNova accelerate efforts to detect and treat depression

March 2, 2020 by SharpBrains


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Heads-up about a cou­ple fas­ci­nat­ing devel­op­ments over the last few weeks.

1) Verily’s Bold New Project Aims to Pre­dict Depres­sion Using Your Phone (Sin­gu­lar­i­ty­Hub):

“Depres­sion is a shift­ing, amor­phous beast that silent­ly haunts mil­lions. It’s also dif­fi­cult to pinpoint.

Psy­chi­a­try has for­mu­lat­ed well-test­ed ques­tion­naires to diag­nose depres­sion. But these tests require patients to reach out and only pro­vide snap­shots of their dis­or­der in time [Read more…] about Ver­i­ly and LivaNo­va accel­er­ate efforts to detect and treat depression

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Alphabet, anti-depressants, depression, digital finger print, digital health, LivaNova, mood predictor, psychiatry, questionnaires, Silicon-Valley, smartphone, Verily

Startup Aural Analytics raises $4.3M to monitor neurological health by analyzing speech patterns

September 10, 2019 by SharpBrains

Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics rais­es $4.3M for voice-based cog­ni­tive health mon­i­tor­ing (Mobi­Health­News):

“Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics, a start­up using speech ana­lyt­ics algo­rithms to gauge changes in brain health, has raised $4.3 mil­lion in seed fund­ing … The arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence engine col­lects speech sam­ples through a smart­phone or tablet app, and uploads these to a cloud serv­er for analy­sis. From these, [Read more…] about Start­up Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics rais­es $4.3M to mon­i­tor neu­ro­log­i­cal health by ana­lyz­ing speech patterns

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Alzheimer’s Disease, Aural Analytics, biomarkers, brain health, cognitive--disorders, cognitive-health, digital biomarkers, NeuroLex, neurological health, Neurotechnology, smartphone, Sonde, speech analytics, startup, vocal biomarkers, WinterLight Labs

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