University-of-Michigan

Rethinking and Retooling Brain Health and Mental Health

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We hope you enjoy this slid­edeck sup­port­ing two ses­sions held at the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health (March 7–9th).  Full record­ings are avail­able for pur­chase here.

8–8.45am. Rethink­ing and Retool­ing Brain Health and Men­tal Health 

  • Dr. Tom Insel, Co-founder and Pres­i­dent of Mind­strong Health and for­mer Direc­tor of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH)

9–10.30am. How to detect prob­lems ear­ly: Exam­ples in Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, Parkinson’s, anx­i­ety and PTSD

  • Dr. Sri­jan Sen, Pro­fes­sor of Depres­sion and Neu­ro­sciences at Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan
  • Jan Samzelius, Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tist of Neu­raMetrix
  • Dr. Tony Chang, Asso­ciate at Mer­ck Ventures
  • Chaired by: Dr. Dean­na Bel­sky, Asso­ciate at Dol­by Fam­i­ly Ventures

Treating sleep-related breathing conditions–such as sleep apnea–via EEG brainwave analysis: Key neurotechnology patent #28

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sleep-disordered breathing
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 7,190,995

Today we dis­cuss a 2007 patent assigned to Regents of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, the NIH and the US Dep­tart­ment of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Patent No. 7,190,995: Sys­tem and method for analy­sis of res­pi­ra­to­ry cycle-relat­ed EEG changes in sleep-dis­or­dered breathing

  • Assignee(s): Regents of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan; NIH and U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
  • Inventor(s): Ronald D. Chervin, Joseph W. Burns, Niko­las S. Sub­ot­ic, Christo­pher Roussi
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: EEG
  • Issue Date: March 13, 2007

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘995 patent applies EEG tech­nol­o­gy to mea­sur­ing a rel­e­vant fea­ture to every­one’s life: breath­ing. Specif­i­cal­ly, the res­pi­ra­to­ry mea­sure­ment cycle may be used to treat sleep-relat­ed breath­ing con­di­tions such as sleep apnea, hypop­nea and sleep frag­men­ta­tion. [Read more…] about Treat­ing sleep-relat­ed breath­ing conditions–such as sleep apnea–via EEG brain­wave analy­sis: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #28

The Future of Cognitive Enhancement and Mental Health: Meet the Experts

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Since 2006, as part of the research sup­port­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness and Sharp­Brains’ mar­ket reports, we have inter­viewed dozens of lead­ing-edge sci­en­tists and experts. Below are some of our favorite quotes and inter­views — you can read the full inter­view notes by click­ing on the links:

Con­ver­sa­tions in 2010

 “…putting good evi­dence to work in prac­tice requires more than pub­lish­ing good research. I’d say that sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence is direct­ly rel­e­vant to per­haps 15% of clin­i­cal deci­sions…we require tech­nolo­gies that trans­late emer­gent knowl­edge into prac­tice.” — Dr. John Docher­ty, Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at Weill Med­ical Col­lege, and for­mer Branch Chief at NIMH.
Full Inter­view Notes.
“We should be think­ing about the brain through its whole life­time…We need to break the silos, to aggre­gate knowl­edge, to help advance our knowl­edge of the brain 50 years in 5 years.” — Patrick Dono­hue, founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Project.
Full Inter­view Notes.

Con­ver­sa­tions in 2009

 “My dream in all of this is to have stan­dard­ized and cred­i­ble tools to train the 5–6 main neu­rocog­ni­tive domains for cog­ni tive health and per­for­mance through life, cou­pled with the right assess­ments to iden­ti­fy one’s indi­vid ual needs and mea sure progress” — Dr. Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor at UCSF, and pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research.
Full Inter­view Notes.
“We have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make major progress in Brain Health in the XXI cen­tu­ry, sim­i­lar to what hap­pened with Car­diovascular Health in the XX, and tech­nol­o­gy will play a cru­cial role.” — Dr. William E. Reich­man, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Baycrest.
Full Inter­view Notes.
“Growth only real­ly comes at the point of resis­tance, but that is the moment that we tend to stop. Because it hurts…pushing our lim­its is a mus­cle that can be cul­ti­vat­ed like any other–incrementally” — Joshua Wait­zkin, chess cham­pi­on and author of The Art of Learn­ing.
Full Inter­view Notes.
“The cor­re­la­tion between iden­ti­cal twins reared apart gives an over­es­ti­mate of her­i­tabil­i­ty because the envi­ron­ments of iden tical twins reared apart are often high­ly sim­i­lar. But the main con­tra­dic­tion of her­i­tabil­i­ty esti­mates lies in the fact that adop­tion pro­duces a huge effect on IQ” ‑Dr. Richard Nis­bett, Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan and author of Intel­li­gence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cul­tures Count.
Full Inter­view Notes.

For more, please vis­it our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series.

Top 10 Cognitive Fitness Events of 2008 (Webinar)

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We have just announced an upcom­ing webi­nar to pro­vide a mar­ket update:  Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 — A Mar­ket Update.

cognitive fitness When: Thurs­day Decem­ber 11th, from 12:00 to 1:00 pm Pacif­ic Time. The same webi­nar will be repeat­ed on Thurs­day Decem­ber 18th, from 9:00 to 10:00 pm Pacif­ic Time.

The Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events that will be dis­cussed include: 

1) Feb­ru­ary: Dakim secures a $10.6m invest­ment from Galen Part­ners. Jack LaLanne becomes spokesperson.
2) April: The Gov­ern­ment of Ontario, Cana­da, invests $10m in Bay­crest to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize cog­ni­tive fit­ness technologies.
3) April: Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan researchers reveal in the Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences how com­put­er­ized work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can gen­er­al­ize and improve flu­id intel­li­gence in healthy adults.
4) May: Humana unveils Games for Health ini­tia­tives, not renew­ing its agree­ment with Posit Science.
5) June: The US Army launch­es a new pol­i­cy requir­ing cog­ni­tive screen­ings of all sol­diers before deploy­ment (in order to [Read more…] about Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 (Webi­nar)

A User’s Guide to Lifelong Brain Health: BrainFit for Life

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As the Brain Fit­ness indus­try con­tin­ues to gain momen­tum, and peo­ple explore all the incred­i­ble brain-train­ing tools being devel­oped, we hope that enthu­si­asts don’t take their eye off the impor­tance of the phys­i­cal health of the brain and all the sys­tems it com­mu­ni­cates with. The brain is unique in that it hous­es our cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al capac­i­ties in the form of the mind. It is a ‘cog­ni­tive’ organ that hungers for stim­u­la­tion from new expe­ri­ences and chal­lenges. Many brain fit­ness pro­grams strive to sat­is­fy this need. Yet the brain is also a phys­i­cal organ that plays by many of the same rules as the heart, lungs, liv­er and kid­neys. To stay healthy and per­form opti­mal­ly it requires qual­i­ty nutri­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and opti­mal sleep. The brain, espe­cial­ly, relies on a healthy vas­cu­lar sys­tem to effi­cient­ly deliv­er oxy­gen and key nutri­ents and remove waste. In fact, the brain uses approx­i­mate­ly 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe to sat­is­fy its high-ener­gy demands. Giv­en that the brain only weighs about 2% of the body, we can con­sid­er it an ener­gy hog and we must cater to its needs very carefully.

Nutri­ents play key roles in brain func­tion. Sev­er­al have shown effi­ca­cy in clin­i­cal tri­als treat­ing cas­es of mood dis­or­ders, cog­ni­tive decline and of course ben­e­fit­ing the phys­i­cal health of the brain. Nutri­ents are both the raw mate­ri­als employed in cre­at­ing new neur­al con­nec­tions and [Read more…] about A User’s Guide to Life­long Brain Health: Brain­Fit for Life