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

By SharpBrains | February 26, 2021

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…

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

By SharpBrains | December 6, 2019

___ 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,…

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

By SharpBrains | January 18, 2019

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,…

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February 26–28th: Save the Date for the 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit and help shape the Future of Brain Health

By SharpBrains | November 9, 2018

?” Imag­ine a free annu­al brain check-up — who should take it, and how could it help prevent/ delay/ treat cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease? Imag­ine your smart­phone can detect ear­ly signs of depres­sion or Parkinson’s Dis­ease — would you like to know? Who else should know … or not know? Imag­ine a videogame cleared by the…

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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation shows early promise to ameliorate depression, especially if combined with other therapies and dosage optimized

By SharpBrains | October 1, 2018

___ Tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion Promis­ing for Major Depres­sive Dis­or­der (Psy­chi­a­try Advi­sor): “Tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) is an inves­tiga­tive modal­i­ty for major depres­sive dis­or­der (MDD) that has shown some promis­ing results. Though it has a while before it is approved by the US Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion, clin­i­cians and patients have been clam­or­ing for…

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