videogame

On building better brains at any age, treating Depression vs. Dementia, emerging neurotechnologies, psychedelics, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eleven new research find­ings and inno­v­a­tive resources for life­long cog­ni­tive and brain health.

#1. Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

#2. Either way, the ear­li­er the bet­ter, but it’s nev­er too late: New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

#3. “If I were a car­di­ol­o­gist eval­u­at­ing a patient’s chest pain, for instance, I would speak with the patient, but then I would lis­ten to their heart and mea­sure their pulse and blood pres­sure. I might order an elec­tro­car­dio­gram or a car­diac stress test, tools that weren’t avail­able a cen­tu­ry ago. Because I’m a psy­chi­a­trist, how­ev­er, I eval­u­ate patients in pre­cise­ly the same way that my pre­de­ces­sors did in 1920…” Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry

#4. Very time­ly effort by Well­come in the UK: Com­pre­hen­sive research review iden­ti­fies most promis­ing inter­ven­tions to boost work­place men­tal health

#5. “As we enter the sec­ond year of the pan­dem­ic, so many peo­ple are strug­gling and seek­ing men­tal health sup­port. Wysa is an exam­ple of how tech­nol­o­gy is help­ing mil­lions of peo­ple access every­day men­tal health sup­port and self-care tools with­out being gat­ed by a clin­i­cal diag­no­sis.” — Dr. Pankaj Jeth­wani, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent at W Health Ven­tures. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

#6. Study: Social media and gen­er­al tech engage­ment not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

#7. Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treat­ments. A nice way to cel­e­brate Akil­i’s 10th anniver­sary … they are tar­get­ing ADHD first (now kids, lat­er teens and adults), to be fol­lowed by treat­ments for a range of cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders relat­ed to depres­sion, Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis, Autism, “Covid-Fog” and more.

#8. Study: High­er men­tal well­be­ing (in 2016) seen to low­er health­care costs (in 2017). We still have time to invest in pub­lic men­tal well­be­ing in 2021.

#9. Teladoc Health, hav­ing acquired Livon­go and myS­trength, launch­es inte­grat­ed men­tal health ser­vice for the work­place. “The announce­ment comes as more than half of peo­ple with men­tal health con­cerns report that they do not know where to start when get­ting care, high­light­ing the impor­tance of the dig­i­tal front door myS­trength Com­plete will pro­vide…” This is indeed a very com­mon pain point accord­ing to our own research, so good to see the quite com­pre­hen­sive & per­son­al­ized approach.

#10. Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ — Fas­ci­nat­ing to see the major role of the Demen­tia Dis­cov­ery Fund, in a bid to accel­er­ate clin­i­cal tri­als and poten­tial therapies.

#11. Last but not least, a very promis­ing clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion of psy­che­delics: Study finds MDMA-assist­ed ther­a­py to be safe and high­ly effec­tive to treat severe PTSD. “The Nature authors spec­u­late that MDMA-assist­ed ses­sions pro­duce a “win­dow of tol­er­ance,” in which patients are able to revis­it trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries, with less shame and anger, and with­out being over­whelmed by PTSD symptoms.”

Wish­ing you a healthy Memo­r­i­al Week­end and month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Akili Interactive Labs raises $160M in equity and debt to transform cognitive healthcare via prescription videogame treatments

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Akili rais­es $110m to build its dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline (phar­mafo­rum):

Endeav­or­Rx became the first and so far only approved pre­scrip­tion video game treat­ment in the US when it was cleared by the FDA last year to treat atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), and has also been giv­en a green light in Europe. [Read more…] about Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treatments

Can biofeedback-based videogames help children better manage stress? Magellan Health and Mightier secure $2 million NIMH grant to investigate

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Might­i­er and Mag­el­lan Health Launch NIMH-Fund­ed Research to Improve Out­comes in Chil­dren’s Men­tal Health through the Use of Video Games (press release):

Might­i­er, provider of a ground-break­ing video game sys­tem for teach­ing chil­dren emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion, today announced the com­pa­ny has been award­ed a $2 mil­lion grant from the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH) to sup­port research on the impact of video games on improv­ing chil­dren’s men­tal health. [Read more…] about Can biofeed­back-based videogames help chil­dren bet­ter man­age stress? Mag­el­lan Health and Might­i­er secure $2 mil­lion NIMH grant to investigate

Magellan Health is testing biofeedback videogame Mightier to help children better self-regulate stress and behavioral health

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Mag­el­lan Health pilot­ing Might­ier’s video game plat­form for emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion train­ing (Mobi­Health­News):

Scotts­dale, Ari­zona-based Mag­el­lan Health announced today that it has launched a pilot of Boston Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal spin-out Neu­ro­mo­tion Labs’ Might­i­er, a biofeed­back video game plat­form designed to help chil­dren reg­u­late their emotions.

[Read more…] about Mag­el­lan Health is test­ing biofeed­back videogame Might­i­er to help chil­dren bet­ter self-reg­u­late stress and behav­ioral health

FDA clears first videogame to be prescribed to kids with ADHD: EndeavorRx by Akili Interactive Labs

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Screen­shot of EndeavorRx

In a land­mark deci­sion, FDA green­lights a video game for kids with ADHD (STAT):

The Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion on Mon­day for the first time gave a green light to a game-based ther­a­peu­tic: a video game meant to be pre­scribed to kids with ADHD.

The game, known as Endeav­or­Rx and devel­oped by Boston-based Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs, can now be mar­ket­ed as a way to improve atten­tion func­tion in kids with ADHD as mea­sured by com­put­er­ized test­ing. Physi­cians can pre­scribe it to chil­dren between the ages of 8 and 12 who have an ADHD diag­no­sis and have demon­strat­ed an issue with attention.

The FDA’s move is a land­mark deci­sion in the emerg­ing dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics sec­tor: In addi­tion to being the first game to be mar­ket­ed as a ther­a­py for any type of con­di­tion, Endeav­or­Rx is the first dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic meant to improve symp­toms asso­ci­at­ed with ADHD, the FDA’s announce­ment said…The game was born in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co lab of neu­ro­sci­en­tist Adam Gaz­za­ley, and was licensed out by Akili, which pol­ished and test­ed the game in clin­i­cal tri­als. Akili spent the past two years wait­ing on a reg­u­la­to­ry deci­sion from the FDA.

[Read more…] about FDA clears first videogame to be pre­scribed to kids with ADHD: Endeav­or­Rx by Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs

Akili Interactive Labs raises $30.5 million to develop FDA-approved brain training videogame for ADHD

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evo_akili.

Videogame Mak­er Seeks to Treat ADHD (The Wall Street Journal):

“Doc­tors don’t usu­al­ly pre­scribe videogame play. But one com­pa­ny, which has just raised $30.5 mil­lion from ven­ture-cap­i­tal investors, hopes to change that.

Boston-based Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs Inc. is devel­op­ing a videogame it believes could replace pills as a treat­ment for atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der. [Read more…] about Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $30.5 mil­lion to devel­op FDA-approved brain train­ing videogame for ADHD