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Some brain-boost­ing sup­ple­ments con­tain an unap­proved drug that could harm users, study warns (STAT news):

“Promis­ing to lift brain fog or improve mem­o­ry, brain-boost­ing sup­ple­ments have joined sex­u­al-enhance­ment and weight-loss reme­dies in the light­ly reg­u­lat­ed world of dietary sup­ple­ments. These prod­ucts may be sold legal­ly with broad-brush come-ons like these, as long as they don’t make spe­cif­ic claims about treat­ing a dis­ease — or con­tain actu­al drugs.

New research led by Dr. Pieter Cohen of Har­vard Med­ical School doc­u­ments five sup­ple­ment brands for sale in the U.S. that con­tain var­i­ous amounts of pirac­etam Read the rest of this entry »

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The all-too-under­stand­able urge to buy a bet­ter brain (Vox):

“… unfor­tu­nate­ly, Bradley Coop­er is part­ly to blame for the boom of the edi­ble brain-improve­ment indus­try.

In 2011, he starred in Lim­it­less, a movie about a man who takes a spe­cial pill and becomes smarter and more capa­ble than any­one else on Earth. I’m jok­ing about the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of this movie, but I’m also not. It was a wild card and an unex­pect­ed hit, and it main­streamed an idea that had already been tak­ing hold among Sil­i­con Val­ley bio­hack­ers and human opti­miza­tion zealots. Read the rest of this entry »

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter, bring­ing you lat­est news around med­ica­tion, brain train­ing, sup­ple­ments, mind-wan­der­ing, dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics, wear­ables, and more — and also a few quick brain teasers to wrap-up.

New research:

• Con­sis­tent use of ADHD med­ica­tion may stunt growth by 2 inch­es, large study finds
• Mind-wan­der­ing may help enhance cre­ativ­i­ty, job per­for­mance and gen­er­al well-being, stud­ies show
• The ulti­mate in trans­fer from brain train­ing to real-world out­comes: Reduc­ing the risk of at-fault acci­dents by almost 50%

New thinking:

• AARP, TINA.org and the Nation­al Con­sumers League join forces to chal­lenge Pre­vagen mem­o­ry improve­ment claims
• Rein­vent­ing Brain Med­i­cine, phar­ma adopts dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics: Evi­dence-based videogames, smart­phone apps, and sen­sors
• For­get the Oscars — the Greater Good­ies hon­or ten films that high­light the growth mind­set, resilience, and more

New tools:

• Next in clin­i­cal prac­tice: Auto­mat­ed real-time detec­tion of seizures via wear­able EMG devices
• DARPA invests in non­sur­gi­cal neu­rotech­nolo­gies for even­tu­al use in healthy human sub­jects

Final­ly, we have a cou­ple of fun, quick brain teasers for you, and also a selec­tion of arti­cles to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2018.

Have a great spring,

The Sharp­Brains Team

How will the Clin­i­cians, Patients and Con­sumers of the Future ensure appro­pri­ate use of brain enhance­ment meth­ods encom­pass­ing lifestyle, sup­ple­ments, brain train­ing, med­i­ta­tion, bio/ neu­ro­feed­back, tDCS and more? (record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck above or Here)

• Dr. Eddie Mar­tuc­ci, Co-Founder and CEO of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs
• Dr. Anna Wexler, sci­ence writer, film­mak­er and post­doc fel­low at the Depart­ment of Med­ical Ethics and Health Pol­i­cy at UPenn’s Perel­man School of Med­i­cine
• Dr. Olivi­er Oul­li­er, Pres­i­dent of EMOTIV 
• Dr. Peter Rein­er, Co-Founder of the Nation­al Core for Neu­roethics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia
• Chaired by: Dr. Ali­son Fen­ney, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion (NIO)

Slid­edeck above sup­port­ed ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).

—–

– Dr. David Rabin­er, Research Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science at Duke Uni­ver­sity and founder of the Atten­tion Research Update.

Giv­en the ongo­ing changes and con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing ADHD diag­no­sis and treat­ment, let us high­light 5 key arti­cles writ­ten by Duke Uni­ver­si­ty’s Dr. David Rabin­er to sum­ma­rize recent sci­en­tif­ic find­ings and their impli­ca­tions, plus a very rel­e­vant online course to help par­ents and pro­fes­sion­als help chil­dren with ADHD.

1. Study finds large gaps between research and prac­tice in ADHD diag­no­sis and treat­ment

• Key insight: Evi­dence-based guide­lines from the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics on the eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment of ADHD are fre­quent­ly not fol­lowed. Many chil­dren are diag­nosed with ADHD in the absence of clear­ly meet­ing DSM diag­nos­tic cri­te­ria, and behav­ioral treat­ment is rarely rec­om­mend­ed.
• Key data point: Pedi­a­tri­cians pre­scribed ADHD med­ica­tion to rough­ly 93% of youth diag­nosed with ADHD. Doc­u­men­ta­tion that behav­ioral treat­ment was rec­om­mend­ed, how­ev­er, was present in only 13% of the charts.

Read the rest of this entry »