BrainBlog

Last week, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released a report about individuals with chronic diseases and their use of the Internet to obtain and share information. The report is available at the link below: Pew Report on Chronic Disease and the Internet From the summary: "The deck is stacked against people living with chronic disease. They are disproportionately offline. They often have complicated health issues, not easily solved by the addition of even the best, most reliable, medical advice. "And yet, those who are online have a trump card. They have each other. This survey finds that having a chronic disease increases the probability that an internet user will share what they know and learn from their peers. They unearth nuggets of information. They blog. They participate in online discussions. And they just keep going. "

The Telegraph has a link to a series of Lumosity games: Available here

A feature article in today's New York Times : Promoting the Car Phone, Despite Risks By MATT RICHTEL The New York Times Published: December 7, 2009 "Industry pioneers have long been aware of the risks of multitasking behind the wheel, but still marketed cellphones to drivers." Read the article

Brain food: the problem with digital memory Digital memory means we can store more than ever before. But isn't it important, sometimes, to forget? Aditya Chakrabortty The Guardian Tuesday 3 November 2009 Read the article

The Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit takes place this 1st and 2nd of December at the Thistle Marble Arch Hotel in London, England. According to the conference website, topics include: - Using Mobile Healthcare Partnership to Transform a Health System From Responsive Into Preventative - Using Mobile Healthcare to Improve Precision in the Diagnosis and Cure of Patient Illness - Freeing the Patient and the System with Intelligent Biometric Diagnostics - Defining the Data Management of Digital Healthcare - What Are The Technical Platforms For Mobile Healthcare Success? - SMS, Devices, Intelligent M2M - Globalising Mobile Healthcare: Regional Case Studies and Uniting the Service – South Korea, North America, Japan Visit the conference website for detailed information.

The annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience is ongoing in Chicago. The event contnues through the 21st. Conference website

From The New York Times : OPINION Room for Debate: Does the Brain Like E-Books? By By The Editors Published: October 14, 2009 "How the reading experience differs between paper and screen." Read the entry and the debate

Follow the link to the Dana Foundation Blog for a posting about a pretty-decent looking intro neuroanatomy app for your iPhone: Brain browser comes to iPhone (5th October, 2009).

For Speech-Impaired, Insurance Fights Remedy By ASHLEE VANCE The New York Times Published: September 15, 2009 "Despite their usefulness and lower cost, devices like iPhones and netbook PCs that can help the speech-impaired are not covered by Medicare or insurers." Read the article

Cleveland Clinic considering telemedicine services for ICUs, home health care MedCity News August 20, 2009 by Chris Seper Read the article

The assistive-limb robot is back in the news this week: Japanese 'robot suit' to help disabled The Telegraph (UK) By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor Published: 3:48PM BST 03 Aug 2009 Read the full article === Corporate website: Cyberdyne

e-patient Connections 2009 Health marketing Meeting website

Bits: If You’re Happy and You Know It, Tell Your Phone By Jenna Wortham Published: July 29, 2009 A Harvard graduate student is surveying iPhone users to help answer an age-old question: What makes people happy? click here to read

"Getting Smarter" The Atlantic August 2009 Read essay here

The new issue of Wired magazine has an article about a book to be published later this year about remembering and forgetting in the digital age, which sounds like it could be an excellent read. How would we manage unlimited memory?

Frings L, Wagner K, Maiwald T, Carius A, Schinkel A, Lehmann C, & Schulze-Bonhage A. Early detection of behavioral side effects of antiepileptic treatment using handheld computers. Epilepsy and Behavior. 2008 Aug; 13(2) :402-406. Epilepsy Center, University Hospital of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. OBJECTIVE: Treatment-emergent side effects are frequent events, particularly during the uptitration of antiepileptic drugs. So far, monitoring of such adverse events in outpatients has often been limited to intervals of weeks or months. We here report the application of a new device for temporally fine-grained assessment of objective well-being and cognitive performance using personal digital assistants (PDAs). METHODS: Twenty adult patients with epilepsy participated in this pilot study. Ten received add-on treatment with levetiracetam. Ten patients with constant medication served as a control group. Differences between groups with respect to self-rated cognitive condition, psychophysi...

From the website, MedGadget: : A Wheelchair with Ears and Brain http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2008/09/a_wheelchair_with_ears_and_brain.html

Yep - another fine New York Times interview about neuro gymnastics: Boomers, Exercise Your Brains, or Else You’ll...Uh... By KATIE HAFNER Published: May 3, 2008 "The fear of a decaying brain has inspired a mini-industry of products from dietary supplements to computer games." [ ... Read the full article ... ]

This looks like an interesting article that I've added to my list of pubs to read: Schiff ND & Fins JJ. Deep brain stimulation and cognition: moving from animal to patient. Current Opinions in Neurology . 2007 Dec; 20(6): 638-642. Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University , New York, New York, USA. PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Brain electrical stimulation has been proposed as a strategy to improve chronically impaired cognitive function. This brief review places a small number of recent studies into a broader historical context and identifies important challenges for further development of this area of research. RECENT FINDINGS: Behavioral improvements following severe brain injury with central thalamic deep brain stimulation were observed in experimental studies conducted in rodents and a report on a single human. These findings suggest that this technique warrants further study as a method to modulate cognitive function in the setting of acq...

Congratulations to Yoky Matsuoka for becoming a MacArthur Fellow. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Read about her work in rehabilitation neurorobotics .