Passionate about improving brain health. VP of Clinical Research @SalmaHealthCo. prev. @neuralink @stanford. Opinions are my own.
Joined November 2021
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It is during times of extreme pressure where one must continue to press forward, for victory is right around the corner.
As an ex-Neuralinker and now building a world-class interventional psychiatry and brain-health system at Salma Health, I agree with this. We are finally making progress in precision based brain healthcare. We need better options for our patients and we need integrated care that uses people’s own biomarkers. This is why we launched ATLAS-1, an observational study that collects >10,000 biomarkers per patient to help us build a treatment predicting algorithm that will give patients more insight about whether a given treatment will be beneficial for them. We aim to deliver the right care at the right time, and it’s time to move from an outdated “one size fits all” approach to an integrated, precision-based one in brain-health care.
🔜 🧠
“We are about to enter the era of interventional psychiatry, transforming the field of psychiatry.” — Tom Insel, former NIMH Director, at a recent psychedelic science conference.
We have invested in many of these new modalities: transcranial focused ultrasound (Sanmai), minimally invasive deep brain stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation (Neurobionics), brain-computer-interfaces (Neuralink), auditory dream engineering (Dust), psychedelic-assisted therapy (atai/Lilly), and real-world-data collection for all (Osmind).
Insel also co-authored a Nature paper with Osmind defining the field: nature.com/articles/s44220-0…
+ summary: osmind.org/interventional-ps…
Interventional psychiatry companies:
• tFUS: Sanm.ai/technology
• Endovascular DBS: Neurobionics.io
• BCI: Neuralink.com
• Dream engineering: DUST.systems
• Psychedelics: ataibeckley.com
P.S. Underfunded: “From 2002-2013, the NIMH did not receive any funding applications for psychedelics. It was all funded and legitimized by philanthropy.”
P.S.S. Needed: “The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that without significant changes, mental illness will cost the world economy $16t by 2030, making it the largest disease burden globally." — UBS: flic.kr/p/2jcRcoS
We need significant changes.
Romina Nejad retweeted
I somehow always get asked about less invasive BCI approaches. Here is which physics limits they hit and won't get you to high bandwidth I/O
fMRI - obv great for research. Never wearable because of B0 field. Also slow, hemodynamic.
Ultrasound - has some decoding results mainly NHP, some human with windows. Skull attenuation + coupling makes intact-skull wearable hard. Hemodynamic too.
EEG - volume conduction + skull LPF. Averages over huge populations, kills HF content. Cool for demos, not high bandwidth.
ECoG - you're already invasive. Still mostly population LFPs. For spikes just go a layer deeper...
Photogenetics - genetic modification won't get approved any time soon, still needs light delivery
Romina Nejad retweeted
Indeed.
Andrew Huberman on why Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all going to become biotech companies.
"Dario came up through neuroscience. Sam, I've spoken to, is extremely smart about the neuroscience, as is Zuck.
The technologists who used to just engineer stuff, they're becoming neuroscientists...and I think most people don't realize that.
They will all tell you, 'Okay, here's the goal. The goal is to be able to read and write from your brain non-invasively.'
Even just for things like drive and motivation, a non-invasive device where you could literally crank up your level of motivation by stimulating the nucleus accumbens and related pathways while engaging in a particular learning task or in hard work, and then turning it off so that you can capture more energy.
That's coming, and those companies are all about that. That's what the real arms race of AI is about."
The atmosphere at the FDA today feels positive and inspiring. The conversations reflect real momentum in mental and brain health, and a serious path toward US approval of psychedelic therapies.
Whoa 😮
A personalized mRNA cancer vaccine passed Phase 3, genuinely great news for melanoma patients!
What happens here? They sequence your tumor, find up to 34 mutations unique to it, and build a custom vaccine that trains your immune system to hunt those exact cells.
In a phase 2 trial earlier this year the vaccine with immunotherapy has shown ~49% lower risk of recurrence or death vs immunotherapy alone, which is the current standard of care. We are waiting now for the details of the phase 3.
After that that concept is now expanding to lung, kidney, bladder cancer and hopefully to many more to come.
Huge win for science!
We are looking for a licensed psychiatrist to take over a state of the art psychiatry practice in Laguna Hills, CA! Compensation is very competitive and you get to join a fast growing brain health company.
If you know someone qualified, DM me.
Romina Nejad retweeted
Neuralink patient Eoin is able to move his wheelchair simply by using his implant paired with HomeBrace:
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Spending my days thinking about complex brain health disorders and how we can solve them, life’s good.
Thanks for sending me a copy of your book! @EricJorgenson excited to read it.
The pathway to growth is always the same, regardless of the I/O.
Step 1: the trigger that leads to distress (emotional, mental, or physical)
Step 2: the immediate resistance to the trigger since status quo has been perturbed
Step 3: emotional, mental, or physical distress that persists until acceptance of new state
Step 4: acceptance, gradual release of distress
Step 5: personal growth & evolution. High probability that recurrence of trigger will yield a smaller reaction or no reaction at all
Bottom line: there is no growth without suffering
The cycle of suffering + release is always the same, regardless of the I/O.
Step 1: the trigger that leads to distress (emotional, mental, or physical)
Step 2: the immediate resistance to the trigger since status quo has been perturbed
Step 3: emotional, mental, or physical distress that persists until acceptance of new state
Step 4: acceptance, gradual release of distress
Step 5: personal growth & evolution. High probability that recurrence of trigger will yield a smaller reaction or no reaction at all
Romina Nejad retweeted
Neuralink is restoring speech to those who have lost the ability to speak
Romina Nejad retweeted
I often say that psilocybin mushrooms (a single large macro dose) are the most potent anti-depressant known to science. The truth is that 5-meo-DMT, the compound Bryan tried today, actually tests even stronger. But there are only two papers on it to date. Psilocybin has 10-15.
