treatments

Update: Understanding Brain Health via Cosmological Health, and vice versa

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LEFT: SECTION OF CEREBELLUM, WITH MAGNIFICATION FACTOR 40X, OBTAINED WITH ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (DR. E. ZUNARELLI, UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF MODENA); RIGHT: SECTION OF A COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATION, WITH AN EXTENSION OF 300 MILLION LIGHT-YEARS ON EACH SIDE (VAZZA ET AL. 2019 A&A). CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing find­ings, books and resources for life­long brain health.

#1. “The human brain (sec­tion; left image above) func­tions thanks to its wide neu­ronal net­work that is deemed to con­tain approx­i­mate­ly 69 bil­lion neu­rons. On the oth­er hand, the observ­able uni­verse (sec­tion sim­u­la­tion; right image) can count upon a cos­mic web of at least 100 bil­lion galax­ies. With­in both sys­tems, only 30% of their mass­es are com­posed of galax­ies and neu­rons. With­in both sys­tems, galax­ies and neu­rons arrange them­selves in long fil­a­ments or nodes between the fil­a­ments. Final­ly, with­in both sys­tems, 70% of the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mass or ener­gy is com­posed of com­po­nents play­ing an appar­ent­ly pas­sive role: water in the brain and dark ener­gy in the observ­able Uni­verse.” Under­stand­ing Brain Health via Cos­mo­log­i­cal Health, and vice versa

#2. One very smart and gen­er­ous brain to bright­en your day: Indi­an teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale wins annu­al $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize; shares half with 9 finalists

#3. “Of all the qual­i­ties par­ents can cul­ti­vate in their chil­dren, hope and opti­mism are the most pre­cious. We can nur­ture hope and opti­mism in our kids by demon­strat­ing that we always have some con­trol over our envi­ron­ment and our­selves. The future isn’t a tide that’s going to crush us, it’s a wave we’re a part of.” — Made­line Levine, author of Ready or Not. Three favorite 2020 books on par­ent­ing and men­tal health

#4. A superb mem­oir on becom­ing a psy­chother­a­py pio­neer and best­selling writer: Becom­ing Myself, by Irvin D. Yalom

#5. This sur­vey of 2500 fam­i­lies about what ADHD treat­ments seem to work/ not work finds that 49% of par­ents report Exer­cise to be ‘Extreme­ly or Very Effec­tive;’ above any oth­er treatment.

#6. On the dan­gers of “pro­duc­tiz­ing” lifestyle guide­lines that help build brain reserve and delay cog­ni­tive prob­lems; Buy­er beware: The sto­ry of a pricey and “cre­den­tialled” pro­gram to end Alzheimer’s Disease

#7. Now, giv­en that “In a new McK­in­sey report, 62% of employ­ees con­sid­er men­tal health issues a top chal­lenge,” it is good to see grow­ing resources and approach­es aimed at address­ing the chal­lenge: Calm rais­es $75 mil­lion, expands into cor­po­rate men­tal health and wellness

#8. And, step by step, dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics are going main­stream: Click Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $30 mil­lion in debt to advance com­mer­cial­iza­tion of smok­ing ces­sa­tion app Clickotine

#9. Nev­er two with­out three: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $80M; finds cost sav­ings of $2,150 per patient with opi­oid use disorder

#10. Final­ly, we asked our team and trust­ed advi­sors to com­pile a list of ideas to stay sane and healthy in the months ahead, pri­or­i­tiz­ing habits shown to pro­mote brain health, resilience and pos­i­tive neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: Enjoy these 3 New Year Res­o­lu­tions and 36 Ideas for a Hap­pi­er & Health­i­er 2021

Wish­ing you a safe, healthy and hap­py New Year

Neuromodulation device Relivion gets FDA clearance to help patients with major depression who don’t benefit from antidepressant medications

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Neu­rolief wins FDA break­through nod for wear­able neu­ro­mod for depres­sion (Mass Device):

Neu­rolief announced today that it received FDA break­through device des­ig­na­tion for its Reliv­ion DP sys­tem for treat­ing major depression.

Reliv­ion is a wear­able, non-inva­sive, mul­ti-chan­nel brain neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion device designed as an adjunc­tive treat­ment to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­age­ment of major depres­sive dis­or­der (MDD) in adults who haven’t expe­ri­enced sat­is­fac­to­ry improve­ment from anti­de­pres­sant med­ica­tions, accord­ing to a news release. [Read more…] about Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion device Reliv­ion gets FDA clear­ance to help patients with major depres­sion who don’t ben­e­fit from anti­de­pres­sant medications

Initial study finds promise and limitations in using virtual reality (VR) to treat ADHD

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Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of exist­ing evi­dence-based ADHD treat­ments, i.e., stim­u­lant med­ica­tion and behav­ior ther­a­py — research on nov­el inter­ven­tion approach­es con­tin­ues to be important.

Cog­ni­tive train­ing is one such approach that has been sug­gest­ed as a poten­tial adjunct or even replace­ment for med­ica­tion treat­ment. While cog­ni­tive train­ing takes dif­fer­ent forms, e.g., com­put­er­ized atten­tion train­ing, work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing, the basic idea is that by repeat­ed­ly prac­tic­ing cog­ni­tive tasks relat­ed to atten­tion, one’s abil­i­ty to focus and attend will improve. In oth­er words, [Read more…] about Ini­tial study finds promise and lim­i­ta­tions in using vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) to treat ADHD

Survey: Parents view Exercise as more effective than Prescription Medications to treat children with ADHD

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Con­sid­er how research sup­port for ADHD treat­ments are typ­i­cal­ly estab­lished. The ‘gold-stan­dard’ approach would be a ran­dom­ized-con­trolled tri­al in which chil­dren with ADHD are ran­dom­ly assigned to the treat­ment or con­trol group. The treat­ment, what­ev­er it hap­pens to be, would be care­ful­ly imple­ment­ed in a research-based pro­to­col. If pos­si­ble [Read more…] about Sur­vey: Par­ents view Exer­cise as more effec­tive than Pre­scrip­tion Med­ica­tions to treat chil­dren with ADHD

Final days to submit scalable & non-pharmacological Brain Health proposals to MIT Solve’s Brain Health Challenge

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Insuf­fi­cient brain health­care is one of the most per­va­sive and mul­ti-faceted prob­lems our world faces today. From the young to the old, the rich to the poor, those liv­ing in dense cities to iso­lat­ed farm­lands, any­one can be affect­ed by brain health prob­lems. Yet, cur­rent solu­tions to this prob­lem are lim­it­ed. While some inno­va­tions have made sig­nif­i­cant strides towards improved brain health, there is a press­ing need for stronger pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of cog­ni­tive health­care and more proac­tive inno­va­tion towards pre­ven­ta­tive treat­ments. [Read more…] about Final days to sub­mit scal­able & non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal Brain Health pro­pos­als to MIT Solve’s Brain Health Challenge

Applying to MIT Solve? Here are 4 Ways, and 20 Resources, to Upgrade Brain Health in the Digital Age

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Insuf­fi­cient brain health­care is one of the most per­va­sive and mul­ti-faceted prob­lems our world faces today. From the young to the old, the rich to the poor, those liv­ing in dense cities to iso­lat­ed farm­lands, any­one can be affect­ed by brain health prob­lems. Yet, cur­rent solu­tions to this prob­lem are lim­it­ed. While some inno­va­tions have made sig­nif­i­cant strides towards improved brain health, there is a press­ing need for stronger pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of cog­ni­tive health­care and more proac­tive inno­va­tion towards pre­ven­ta­tive treatments.

Here’s what the new MIT Solve 2017 Glob­al Chal­lenge says about brain health:

“Brain and men­tal well-being are crit­i­cal to the health and hap­pi­ness of the 7.5 bil­lion peo­ple who inhab­it our planet…shifting the con­ver­sa­tion from treat­ing brain dis­eases to improv­ing well-being may begin to dis­solve the cul­tur­al stig­ma that makes it dif­fi­cult for many to seek help.”

Con­tin­ue read­ing the arti­cle Four Ways to Upgrade Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age, by Sharp­Brains’ Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, with guide­lines and resources to:

  1. Pri­or­i­tize scal­able solu­tions for all
  2. Har­ness life­long neuroplasticity
  3. Har­ness per­va­sive tech­nolo­gies and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)
  4. Edu­cate users and encour­age human-cen­tered innovation