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Reminder: UT-Dallas BrainHealth presents virtual talks with Alvaro Fernandez (this Thursday, April 21st) and Sanjay Gupta (next Tuesday, April 26th)

April 19, 2022 by UT Dallas

Each month, some of the most fas­ci­nat­ing speak­ers par­tic­i­pate in inter­ac­tive con­ver­sa­tions about the lat­est advances in brain health sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and real-world application.

All talks are vir­tu­al and free of charge. Reg­is­ter for the sea­son and attend as many talks as you like. [Read more…] about Reminder: UT-Dal­las Brain­Health presents vir­tu­al talks with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (this Thurs­day, April 21st) and San­jay Gup­ta (next Tues­day, April 26th)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: alvaro-fernandez, Applied Neuroscience, brain health, Brain-Fitness, digital brain health, Pervasive Neurotechnology, real-world application, Sanjay Gupta, science, technology

UT-Dallas BrainHealth presents virtual talks with Alvaro Fernandez and Sanjay Gupta next month

March 28, 2022 by UT Dallas

Each month, the most fas­ci­nat­ing speak­ers par­tic­i­pate in inter­ac­tive con­ver­sa­tions about the lat­est advances in brain health sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and real-world application.

All talks are vir­tu­al and free of charge. Reg­is­ter for the sea­son and attend as many talks as you like.

» Learn More & Reg­is­ter HERE

NAVIGATING THE DIGITAL BRAIN HEALTH MARKET
with Alvaro Fernandez

April 21, 2022 | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

Mr. Fer­nan­dez, named a Young Glob­al Leader, runs Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm track­ing applied neu­ro­science will present the lat­est trends in dig­i­tal brain health and soci­ety’s march toward per­va­sive neurotechnology.

He is the edi­tor-in-chief of sem­i­nal mar­ket reports on Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Dig­i­tal Brain Health, and co-author of the books The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness and El Cere­bro Que Cura.

KEEP SHARP
with San­jay Gup­ta, MD

April 26, 2022 | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

San­jay Gup­ta – neu­ro­sur­geon, med­ical reporter and author – is a lead­ing voice on health, well­ness and active liv­ing, and a trust­ed resource for expert advice on how to stay healthy and safe dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the coun­try’s pre­mier nar­ra­tor of health, he makes impor­tant sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments relat­able. He will share insights from his recent NY Times best-sell­er Keep Sharp: Build a Bet­ter Brain at Any Age.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: alvaro-fernandez, Applied Neuroscience, brain health, Brain-Fitness, digital brain health, Pervasive Neurotechnology, real-world application, Sanjay Gupta, science, technology

The Do’s and Don’ts of Harnessing Technology (and Anxiety) for Good

February 28, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills and more…

#1. Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

“Tech­nol­o­gy can not only help us grow out of unhealthy habits, it is also pos­si­ble to expand human men­tal capac­i­ties … although it will be nec­es­sary to ana­lyze “the how and when” of these uses: they must be eth­i­cal­ly sound and ensure that results are ben­e­fi­cial to soci­ety.” — our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, hop­ing you all agree 🙂

If you pre­fer to read the arti­cle in Span­ish: Cómo hac­er de la tec­nología un ali­a­do en el cuida­do de la salud mental

#2. On neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, young brains, and smartphones

“As with any tool, behav­ior, activ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy, smart phones have the poten­tial to be either a use­ful and high­ly con­struc­tive asset or a destruc­tive and harm­ful diver­sion from life … What is the impact on brain devel­op­ment dur­ing the first 25 years of life when a sig­nif­i­cant part of each day is spent look­ing into a smart phone and the result­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al experiences?”

#3. Explor­ing links between hear­ing loss, demen­tia and the ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ — plus the role of hear­ing aids

“Cer­tain types of demen­tia, par­tic­u­lar­ly vas­cu­lar demen­tia, are caused when there is less blood flow reach­ing the brain. This can dam­age our brain cells. Recent stud­ies have also shown that the parts of our brain that process sounds (our audi­to­ry sys­tem) have many blood ves­sels and are vul­ner­a­ble to dam­age … Anoth­er area of research is look­ing at whether hear­ing loss indi­rect­ly affects demen­tia risk by mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed. Social iso­la­tion is anoth­er known risk fac­tor for dementia.”

#4. Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

“The find­ings of this ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­al sug­gest that CCBT with a mod­est amount of clin­i­cian sup­port has poten­tial for wider-spread imple­men­ta­tion as an effec­tive, accept­able, and effi­cient treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care.”

#6. Wear­able EEG mon­i­tor­ing start-up Epi­tel rais­es $12.5M to mar­ket seizure detec­tion system

“It is time that EEGs for the brain become as acces­si­ble as EKGs for the heart to patients through­out the coun­try. For too long essen­tial neu­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices have been inac­ces­si­ble to large parts of our pop­u­la­tion” — Dr. Chaud­ery, Prin­ci­pal at Genoa Ven­tures (co-lead investor)

#7. Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

“The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.”

#8. Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

“Most peo­ple have all heard of the fight-or-flight system—that’s the stress sys­tem, it makes your heart rate go up and you can run away real­ly fast. Well, peo­ple don’t real­ize that through evo­lu­tion in par­al­lel with the fight-or-flight sys­tem evolved an equal and oppo­site part of our ner­vous sys­tem that’s nick­named the “rest-and-digest” part of the ner­vous sys­tem, or parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. It’s basi­cal­ly the de-stress­ing part of our ner­vous sys­tem. That is what we need to acti­vate to bring our­selves back to equi­lib­ri­um when we’re in a stress­ful state.”

 

Final­ly, as promised, a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills–and more. Enjoy!

#9. Test your mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing skills with these proverbs

#10. Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#11. Did you notice the jump? Good rea­son­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing often requires prop­er atten­tion to detail…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and safe March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, En Español, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain, brain-development, cCBT, cognitive, computer-assisted cognitive behavior therapy, dementia, emotional, Epitel, health, hearing aids, Jolly Good, mental capacities, mental health, neuroplasticity, Otsuka, parasympathetic nervous system, technology, wearable EEG, Wendy Suzuki

Challenge ahead: Harnessing technology for good mental health

February 25, 2022 by Fundación Innovación Bankinter

Mak­ing tech­nol­o­gy an ally in men­tal health care (Fun­dación Inno­vación Bankinter):

Inter­est in using tech­nol­o­gy for men­tal health dates back to the mid twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. “Stud­ies began back in the 1960s, giv­en the grow­ing con­cern about addic­tion in chil­dren (espe­cial­ly) and adults,” clar­i­fies Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez about the begin­ning of this discipline.

Sesame Street, the well-known Amer­i­can show, is a project that devel­oped to “mas­ter the addic­tive qual­i­ties of tele­vi­sion and do some­thing good with them“, in the words of its pro­duc­ers. As Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez points out, these pro­grams appeared to “chan­nel tech­nol­o­gy in a way that is ben­e­fi­cial to cog­ni­tive and men­tal health,” which indi­cates that this inter­est is not temporary.

But it is new in oth­er areas. For obvi­ous rea­sons, the study of the Inter­net and social net­works is much more recent than that of tele­vi­sion, and is usu­al­ly divid­ed into two major trends: [Read more…] about Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: cognitive and mental health, Internet, mental health, mental health care, Neurotechnology, non-invasive neurotechnology, pervasive, Pervasive Neurotechnology, Sesame Street, social networks, technology

How COVID-related stress can disrupt your brain circuits and nine tips to prevent it

September 3, 2020 by World Economic Forum

COVID-19 has touched each of us some­how. Many now rec­og­nize that car­ing for our men­tal health is as essen­tial as address­ing the virus if we are to emerge stronger, more con­nect­ed and more resilient.

The Ancient Greeks said “know thy­self” to live sound­ly, but it is only now that we have the tech­nol­o­gy to start under­stand­ing how our indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences arise from the com­plex­i­ty of our brains. [Read more…] about How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: accelerated, accelerated learning, Anhedonia, anxiety disorder, biotypes, brain circuits, Brain-Plasticity, chronic-stress, clinical depression, Cognitive Fog, cognitive-control, COVID-19, inattention, Learning, mental health, mindful, negative bias, Precision Mental Health, rumination, Stanford, Stress, technology, Threat Response, wellness

Upcoming: Virtual book tour to explore the frontier of Emotional Intelligence and Technology

March 24, 2020 by Rana el Kaliouby

__

Dear Sharp­Brains community,

I hope you’re stay­ing healthy and safe. As you may know, my mem­oir, Girl Decod­ed, pub­lished by Pen­guin Ran­dom House, comes out on April 21st. I’d planned numer­ous events across the U.S. and abroad to share my sto­ry with all of you. But, in light of the glob­al health cri­sis sur­round­ing COVID-19, every­thing is right­ful­ly canceled.

In this time when we need to social­ly dis­tance, I know I’m crav­ing human con­nec­tion more than ever. I still want to con­nect with you all on the themes dis­cussed in my book. [Read more…] about Upcom­ing: Vir­tu­al book tour to explore the fron­tier of Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Technology

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, book, brain-book, emotional-intelligence, entrepreneur, Girl Decoded, Rana el Kaliouby, scientist, technology

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