tDCS

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

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Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fitness.

#1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study 🙂

Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.”

#2. Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Mem­o­ry: “It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong” … Gen­o­va assures her read­ers that only two per cent of Alzheimer’s cas­es are of the strict­ly inher­it­ed, ear­ly-onset kind. For most of us, our chances of devel­op­ing the dis­ease are high­ly amenable to interventions…”

#3. Time­ly tips for the week­end: Shape your envi­ron­ment, shape your mind

  • Sur­round your­self with nature
  • Cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for awe
  • Clear the clutter

#4. “For a mis­sion to suc­ceed, high men­tal and cog­ni­tive func­tion would be absolute­ly crit­i­cal; astro­nauts would be called on to per­form demand­ing tasks in a demand­ing envi­ron­ment. Los­ing 20 IQ points halfway to Mars is not an option … Stress—an emo­tion­al or men­tal state result­ing from tense or over­whelm­ing circumstances—and the body’s response to it, which involves mul­ti­ple sys­tems, from metab­o­lism to mus­cles to memory—may be the chief chal­lenge that astro­nauts face.” Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

#5. Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accu­rate (based on a cool opti­cal illusion)

#6. It’s good to have more tools in the neu­ro toolkit…assuming we use them wise­ly: Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

#7. Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

#8. Men­tal Health in the Dig­i­tal Age: From dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to per­son­al­ized men­tal health solu­tions: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics expands plat­form via part­ner­ships with Empat­i­ca, etec­tRx, Key­Wise, and Winterlight

#9. The award was won last year by Indi­an vil­lage teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale; who will be next? Final day to nom­i­nate teach­ers for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize 2021

#10. And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, let’s wel­come Men­tal Health Month (May) by appre­ci­at­ing our beau­ti­ful brains

Wish­ing you a men­tal­ly healthy and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Emerging applications of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): e‑sports skills training, cognitive enhancement in older adults

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10 Min­utes of Elec­tri­cal Stim­u­la­tion Dur­ing Gam­ing Helps Improve e‑Sports Skills (Tech­nol­o­gy Networks):

Researchers at Lero, the Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Ire­land Research Cen­tre for Soft­ware and Uni­ver­si­ty of Lim­er­ick (UL), have found video gamers can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve their esport skills by train­ing for just 10 min­utes a day.

The research team at Lero’s Esports Sci­ence Research Lab (ESRL) at UL also found novice gamers ben­e­fit­ed most when they wore a cus­tom head­set deliv­er­ing tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) for 20 min­utes before train­ing ses­sions. [Read more…] about Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

On Brain Awareness Week, mental health innovation, tDCS, biofeedback, psychedelics, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, start­ing with some ideas to get in the mood for Brain Aware­ness Week next month (March 15–21st). May BAW 2021 be a hun­dred times more upbeat than last year’s…

#1. Sev­en brain teasers and a neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty pod­cast to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2021

#2. Imag­ine what this capa­bil­i­ty may mean just a few years from now. Should/ will Google alert Gmail users about their (future) cog­ni­tive sta­tus? Study: Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram iden­ti­fies lin­guis­tic mark­ers that pre­dict, with 70% accu­ra­cy, who gets Alzheimer’s Dis­ease years later

#3. Sim­i­lar to what hap­pened to Thync back in 2016, Halo Neu­ro­science strug­gled to com­mer­cial­ize tDCS as a non-med­ical device and the tech­nol­o­gy is being repur­posed for clin­i­cal use. Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion devel­op­er Halo Neu­ro­science clos­es its doors; Flow Neu­ro­science acquires assets

#4. Here you have a cou­ple recent meta-analy­ses sug­gest­ing a grow­ing adop­tion in the near future of web-based, and increas­ing­ly per­son­al­ized, inter­ven­tions. Grow­ing research points to expand­ing adop­tion of online cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­pies, both guid­ed and unguided

#5. “If there is any­thing we’ve seen out of this year, it’s real­ly become that fourth pil­lar of ben­e­fits for every employ­er out there. Every­one has med­ical, den­tal and vision. Men­tal health has now real­ly become that fourth pil­lar of ben­e­fits for all employ­ers.” — Alyson Wat­son, CEO and founder of Mod­ern Health. Four trends accel­er­at­ing men­tal health inno­va­tion in the COVID/ post-COVID era

#6. “Access to men­tal health­care is a human right that shouldn’t be buried by stig­ma, lack of access, or afford­abil­i­ty.” — Oliv­er Har­ri­son, CEO of Koa Health. Dig­i­tal men­tal health start-up Koa Health rais­es €30M to accel­er­ate growth in Europe and the US

#7. “Just as the viral pan­dem­ic has accel­er­at­ed vac­cine devel­op­ment, this glob­al cri­sis has brought togeth­er men­tal health experts from the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor around the world to address what is sure­ly a sec­ond pan­dem­ic trig­gered by loss, anx­i­ety, and social iso­la­tion” — Thomas Insel, MD, co-founder of Human­est Care. Sur­vey finds con­cerns AND hope to address grow­ing men­tal health needs due to the covid pandemic

#8. Can biofeed­back-based videogames help chil­dren bet­ter man­age stress? Mag­el­lan Health and Might­i­er secure $2 mil­lion NIMH grant to investigate

#9. “The Organ­i­sa­tion for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) has reviewed almost 600 men­tal health apps … only 29.6% meet qual­i­ty thresh­olds” The land­scape of dig­i­tal men­tal health apps: huge unmet needs, qual­i­ty con­cerns, app stores asked to ensure transparency

#10. Final­ly, an idea out there worth explor­ing … Next: Psy­che­del­ic-assist­ed psychotherapy?

Have a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing month of March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Neuromodulation developer Halo Neuroscience closes its doors; Flow Neuroscience acquires assets

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Flow acquires brain stim­u­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­er Halo (Med­ical Device Network):

Flow Neu­ro­science has acquired the assets of brain stim­u­la­tion tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­er Halo Neu­ro­science to advance its research into depres­sion and oth­er men­tal health dis­or­der treat­ments. [Read more…] about Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion devel­op­er Halo Neu­ro­science clos­es its doors; Flow Neu­ro­science acquires assets

Growing debate about the ethics and regulation of direct-to-consumer transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

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Accord­ing to the adver­tis­ing hype, you too can enjoy incred­i­ble neur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits in the com­fort of your own home by using a sim­ple elec­tri­cal device that offers tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS). For instance, three dif­fer­ent mod­els of tDCS devices sold online claim to improve mood, increase cre­ativ­i­ty, enhance mem­o­ry, accel­er­ate learn­ing, and com­bat pain and depres­sion. For the low, low price of between $99 and $189.95, you get a com­pact hand­held device with easy-to-use con­trols and two elec­tri­cal leads that end in small sponges. These sponges are dipped into saline solu­tion to make them cur­rent-car­ry­ing elec­trodes, then placed against your head. The web­sites typ­i­cal­ly show the sponges locat­ed on either side of the fore­head, but point out that they need to be placed else­where on the skull to acti­vate dif­fer­ent parts of the brain, depend­ing on the desired outcome.

Wher­ev­er you place the sponges, when you switch on the unit, you’re pump­ing elec­tric cur­rent into your brain, although not very much.

[Read more…] about Grow­ing debate about the ethics and reg­u­la­tion of direct-to-con­sumer tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS)

Bioethicists call for stronger oversight of direct-to-consumer neurotechnologies

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Bioethi­cists call for over­sight of poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed, con­sumer-grade neu­rotech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts (Med­ical News):

“The mar­ket­ing of direct-to-con­sumer “neu­rotech­nolo­gies” can be entic­ing: apps that diag­nose a men­tal state, and brain devices that improve cog­ni­tion or “read” one’s emo­tion­al state. How­ev­er, many of these increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar prod­ucts aren’t ful­ly sup­port­ed by sci­ence and have lit­tle to no reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight, which pos­es [Read more…] about Bioethi­cists call for stronger over­sight of direct-to-con­sumer neurotechnologies