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Wysa

Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Wysa raises $20M to scale up mental health chatbot

July 19, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wysa rais­es $20 mil­lion to expand its ther­a­pist chat­bot into a wider set of men­tal health ser­vices (TechCrunch):

Wysa, a pop­u­lar men­tal health app orig­i­nal­ly found­ed in India around an AI chat­bot that helps users talk through their feel­ings, has raised $20 mil­lion in a Series B fund­ing round to expand its busi­ness on the heels of hit­ting 4.5 mil­lion users in 65 countries.

The all-equi­ty round is led by India’s dig­i­tal health-focused ven­ture cap­i­tal fund HealthQuad, with par­tic­i­pa­tion also from British Inter­na­tion­al Invest­ment (BII), the U.K.’s devel­op­ment finance insti­tu­tion. The plan will be to use the mon­ey to dou­ble down on its home mar­ket as well as the U.S. and U.K, where it already has respec­tive­ly had approvals from the FDA and the Nation­al Health Ser­vice (NHS) and is used by the lat­ter as part of its online men­tal health ser­vices. [Read more…] about Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) meets Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT): Wysa rais­es $20M to scale up men­tal health chatbot

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI chatbot, British International Investment, CBT, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, digital therapeutics, HealthQuad, mental health app, therapist, WhatsApp, Wysa

Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

June 30, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use 🙂

#1. Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

“Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

#3. UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain health, brain-teaser, chronic pain, cognition, cognitive, cognitive-functioning, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, depression, emotion, FDA, mental health, mental health care, neuroimaging, social isolation, videogames, work-related stress, working-memory-training, Wysa

AI-enabled chatbot Wysa receives FDA Breakthrough Device designation for patients with chronic pain, depression and anxiety

June 6, 2022 by SharpBrains

AI Behav­ior Health Chat­bot App Fast-Tracked by FDA (Psy­chol­o­gy Today):

Recent­ly the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) grant­ed break­through device des­ig­na­tion to Wysa’s AI-based dig­i­tal men­tal health con­ver­sa­tion­al agent that deliv­ers cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) via a smart­phone to adults suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and chron­ic mus­cu­loskele­tal pain [Read more…] about AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, artificial intelligence, CBT, chronic musculoskeletal pain, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, depression, digital mental health, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, mental health industry, smartphone, Wysa

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbot Wysa raises $5.5M to broaden access to mental health support

May 24, 2021 by SharpBrains

Wysa’s AI-Guid­ed Men­tal Health Plat­form Clos­es $5.5M Series A to Bridge the Gap in Employ­ee Men­tal Health (press release):

“Wysa, the lead­ing glob­al AI-pow­ered men­tal health plat­form, today, dur­ing Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, announced a $5.5M Series A financ­ing round led by W Health Ven­tures, a Boston-based dig­i­tal health investor. Oth­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the round include the Google Assis­tant Invest­ment pro­gram, and exist­ing investors pi Ven­tures and Kae Cap­i­tal. Wysa will use this cap­i­tal to sup­port its offer­ing to employ­ers who want to expand their men­tal health ben­e­fits, as well as scale up Wysa’s sales team and ther­a­pist net­work. [Read more…] about Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, cognitive restructuring, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, digital therapeutics, mental health benefits, mental health platform, mental healthcare, mindfulness, W Health Ventures, Wysa

Consumer Reports finds unclear, questionable privacy practices and policies among popular mental health apps

March 4, 2021 by SharpBrains

Men­tal Health Apps Aren’t All As Pri­vate As You May Think (Con­sumer Reports):

Type “men­tal health” or a con­di­tion such as anx­i­ety or depres­sion into an app store search bar, and you can end up scrolling through end­less screens of options. As a recent Con­sumer Reports inves­ti­ga­tion has found, these apps take wide­ly var­ied approach­es to help­ing peo­ple han­dle psy­cho­log­i­cal challenges—and they are just as var­ied in how they han­dle the pri­va­cy of their users. [Read more…] about Con­sumer Reports finds unclear, ques­tion­able pri­va­cy prac­tices and poli­cies among pop­u­lar men­tal health apps

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: 7 Cups, BetterHelp, consumer-reports, ethics, mental health apps, MindDoc (formerly known as Moodpath), Neurotechnology, privacy, Sanity & Self, Talkspace, Wysa, Youper

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