Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

technology

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

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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

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

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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

Trend: Growing interest in (and questions around) brain training centers for kids with special needs

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Par­ents pay thou­sands for ‘brain train­ing’ to help kids with ADHD and autism. But does it work? (NBC News):

“…As the num­ber of chil­dren diag­nosed with ADHD and autism surges in the U.S., accord­ing to fed­er­al data, and as par­ents become exas­per­at­ed with treat­ments that don’t work or involve med­ica­tions that car­ry the risk of side effects, neu­rotech­nol­o­gy indus­try ana­lysts pre­dict the demand for pro­grams like these will only grow [Read more…] about Trend: Grow­ing inter­est in (and ques­tions around) brain train­ing cen­ters for kids with spe­cial needs

Four guidelines for smart use of smartphones

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These days, you can’t go any­where with­out hear­ing about how tech­nol­o­gy is ruin­ing every­thing, includ­ing our hap­pi­ness. There is some truth to this, but it’s not the whole story.

Tech­nol­o­gy can be bad for us—for exam­ple, when social media gives us FOMO (fear of miss­ing out) or traps us in fil­ter bub­bles that pre­vent us from see­ing mul­ti­ple points of view on impor­tant issues. As a soci­ety, we are increas­ing­ly con­cerned that tech­nolo­gies like smart­phones and social media result in more social com­par­i­son, bul­ly­ing, and loneliness—all stum­bling blocks to hap­pi­ness. Tech­nol­o­gy seems to be bad for our hap­pi­ness when it inter­feres with the men­tal, social, emo­tion­al, and behav­ioral process­es that con­tribute to well-being.

But we often fail to real­ize (and dis­cuss) the ways that tech­nol­o­gy can also sup­port hap­pi­ness and well-being—for exam­ple [Read more…] about Four guide­lines for smart use of smartphones

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) shares discussion paper to help empower 8 billion minds via the ethical adoption of digital mental health and neurotech

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Tech­nol­o­gy has much to offer in terms of pro­vid­ing and improv­ing access to bet­ter men­tal health care. Why, then, has more not been done to take advan­tage of these tools?

The newest dis­cus­sion paper from #NAM­Per­spec­tives, [Read more…] about The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (NAM) shares dis­cus­sion paper to help empow­er 8 bil­lion minds via the eth­i­cal adop­tion of dig­i­tal men­tal health and neurotech

September 17th @ UC Berkeley: Disrupting neurodegenerative diseases

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Quick heads-up about a great event next month for those based in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area.

  • When: Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 17, 2019 / 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM PDT
  • Where: Pauley Ball­room, UC Berkeley
  • What: 2019 UC Berke­ley Aging Research & Tech­nol­o­gy Sum­mit: Dis­rupt­ing Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Diseases

Alzheimer’s and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases are [Read more…] about Sep­tem­ber 17th @ UC Berke­ley: Dis­rupt­ing neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive diseases