Physiology

The body has its own traffic light system, and it’s been stuck on red for too long – The Spinoff

Our in-built survival mode is designed to switch on in times of crisis, but its not helpful or sustainable to live in a heightened state of alert for a long time. Heres how to use your body and mind to return to the green zone.

You wake inside a burning house. This is not a dream or a movie. Your house is on fire. Before you know it, you roll to the floor to escape smoke, shout to wake everyone, crawl to your children, haul them into your arms, run for the best escape route, and get to the street in seconds. Your heart is pounding, youre breathing fast, but youre safe. Youve never done this before and youre surprised at your own speed and strength. Welcome to the red zone.

Everyone is alive and safe. Understandably, you remain on high alert for a while after the house fire. You notice that you jump easily, you worry about the future, its hard to concentrate, youre not laughing much, and little challenges frustrate you. You feel tense. This is the orange zone. Your body is recovering from the red zone activation and starting to return to a calm state.

Insurance paid out quickly, youre in a new house and your family is back at work and school. Youre grateful. Life returns to normal and feels easy. Theres a pervading sense of contentment. Theres very little that rattles you. Challenges are tackled with enthusiasm. You make decisions in a split second. You see the humour in everyday things. You feel relaxed and healthy. Wouldnt it be great to live like this? Well yes, because this is the green zone that were designed to be in most of the time.

Red, orange, green this is the traffic light system of the body. Its run by the nervous system a network of over 80 billion neurons that receives information from the outside world, communicates with the brain to decide what to do, and transmits messages to glands, organs and muscles that need to take action. When our senses see, hear, and smell the house fire, electrochemical signals travel through the nervous system at speeds of up to 360km per hour so that within seconds weve transformed from a relaxed, sleeping human to an alert, strong, fast machine.

This is an impressive ability. Our whole physiology flips to optimise our chances of survival. Stress hormones are released, leading to increased heart rate, breathing pace, thickening of the blood to prepare for injury, greater availability of glucose to fuel our muscles, and sharper vision and hearing. We cannot remain in this fight or flight mode indefinitely. Once the threat is over, we need to return to the green zone because thats the only state in which we can sleep soundly, digest properly, reproduce, fight disease, repair damage and think deeply. Extended time in the red or orange zones ultimately leads to exhaustion, poor health and disease.

If only a pandemic were as simple as a house fire which, although devastating, requires only a short time in the red zone, a transition time in orange, and back to living in the green zone. But no, keeping humanity safe from Covid-19 is proving to be a drawn-out, unpredictable process. The loss of life, sickness, isolation, restrictions, and substantial changes to lives and livelihoods are more than enough to put us into orange or red. It is seriously challenging to deal with. But from a physiological perspective, it is not helpful or sustainable to live in a heightened state of alert for a long time. A little adrenaline is great for motivating us to prepare, get vaccinated and pivot quickly to change routines, look after others, or save our businesses, but we do not need to be in full-blown attack or run-in-fear mode. It is simply not healthy.

With the introduction of the traffic light system for managing Covid-19 in Aotearoa, the opening of Aucklands border, and the arrival of the omicron strain, there is more uncertainty on the way. If this is a daunting prospect, its worth remembering to look after the traffic light system we have a little more control over.

From another time of crisis comes the wisdom that humans can influence our internal settings regardless of external circumstances. Neurologist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl put it like this: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose ones own way. We all share a human physiology. We have the ability to return to the calm, relaxed, flexible state of the green zone amid crisis this may require effort and asking for help.

Given our internal traffic light system is automatic and run by the subconscious brain, how can we control what zone were in? Research from the fields of neuroscience, psychology and physiology shows there are myriad ways we can influence our nervous system. The interconnected workings of our body, mind and soul mean we can approach a reset from multiple angles.

To start with the body: we all know what it wants most is for us to take it outside and move it! And to fuel it with nutritious food. But more specifically, many health practitioners agree that the fastest way out of the red zone is deep belly breathing. As physiotherapist Tania Clifton-Smith explains in her new book, The breath acts as a switch with the ability to transition between the green and red zones. Consciously breathing through your nose, slowly and deeply, making your tummy move instead of your chest, is a pathway via the body to show the brain you are safe. There is no way you would be breathing like this if you were in imminent danger.

The mind can be our greatest asset or an absolute hindrance. Ensure your mind is an asset by recognising that, via thoughts, it plays a powerful role in balancing and integrating the different jobs of the brain. When our thoughts frequently come from a place of fear and worry what if I dont meet the deadline, say something stupid, cant pay my bills, catch Covid our body will start responding as though theres an immediate threat. And yet, for these hypothetical concerns, theres nothing to fight or run from so we dont need to mount a full physiological response. Our senses and subconscious brain do a good job of detecting immediate threat to life. We dont need the thinking mind to get involved.

Using the mind to keep you in the green zone is as simple as purposely making good use of your thoughts. Talk to yourself like a supportive coach, a funny friend, or a trusted kaumtua. Think things that make you feel good. Just picturing yourself at your favourite holiday spot with all the sights and sounds and smells of the place can calm your nervous system and put you back into rest and digest mode. And neuroplasticity tells us that if we practise this enough, we actually change the brain to make it easier to remain in the green zone.

The soul may be a shining, slippery, amorphous presence but it can still be guided. It doesnt need taming, it needs encouraging, and it needs a purpose. In his advice for teenagers, psychologist Ben Sedley says, Figure out what you care about and then care about it. And from the perspective of being in the green zone during challenging times, its very helpful to have a positive goal to focus our attention on.

Some days our purpose might be to cook a delicious meal thats enough. Other days we might have the capacity to solve climate change. And theres the bigger picture purpose of this self-care when we get ourselves in a good place, we can help others more effectively and make the world a better place.

Finding the green zone isnt all hard work. Random outbursts of laughter, hugging, singing, dancing and gratitude do a heap of good. I feel glad to be alive Im glad Im not dead! sometimes bursts out of me when the weather is perfect, wrote Oliver Sacks in his book Gratitude. But if this sounds too hard right now, seek professional help.

The traffic light system is here and we will witness many government-imposed red lights before were through, so its time to choose your inner green light as often as possible. Give yourself a ticket to the green zone. Permission to seriously relax! Consciously and consistently put yourself into calm waters, green pastures, a tree-hut hideaway, under your maunga, beside your awa or whatever metaphorical form your inner peace takes. This is not a luxury your health depends on it.

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The body has its own traffic light system, and it's been stuck on red for too long - The Spinoff

Neuroscience

University of California, Davis – UC Davis Neuroscience …

By Evan White

Discovering how infections during pregnancy, such as COVID-19 and influenza, can lead to psychiatric illness and developmental disorders in offspring years later, and how to detect, prevent or treat these disorders, is the subject of a $15.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Conte Center at the University of California, Davis.

The UC Davis Conte Center, organized through the Center for Neuroscience, was originally established with an NIH grant in 2016. This grant renews the centers funding for another five years.

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University of California, Davis - UC Davis Neuroscience ...

Neuroscience

Neuroscience Graduate Group

Application Deadline

Prospective graduate students may apply for admission to ourPh.D. program.

Applications are accepted for fall quarter admission onlyand should be submitted as early as possible.

The Neuroscience program application deadline is December 1st. The application system for this graduate group will shut down at midnight on this date, US Pacific Standard Time. Admissions review will start promptly after the deadline, and incomplete applications will not be considered. Please ensure that all supporting materials (transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation) are submitted by the deadline as well.

The Neuroscience graduate group evaluates applicants using holistic review. Many criteria are considered when reviewing individual applications for admission into the Neuroscience graduate group:

Visit Grad Studies website to begin theapplicationprocess

The graduate group cannot review an application until all of the above components are received. Inquiries concerning application procedures or any other aspects of the program should be directed to:neurogradgroup@ucdavis.edu

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Neuroscience Graduate Group

Neuroscience

Changes in brain hinder addiction recovery in those HIV positive: Study – Devdiscourse

A study by the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester studied how the brain puts the 'brakes' on behaviour in individuals recovering from cocaine addiction and who are also HIV-positive. The research has been published in the 'Neuropharmacology Journal'.

"Scientists have long known that drug abuse can cause damage to the brain. We also know HIV infection can cause brain changes," said John Foxe, PhD, director of the Del Monte Institute for Neurosciences and senior author of the study. "Since drug use is common in individuals with HIV, an important question is how brain deficits associated with both conditions might add up," he added.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain responses of cocaine addicts and patients with HIV while participants played a game that involved purposefully withholding responses to target stimuli. "The challenging thing about the game we asked participants to play isn't exactly playing it, per se," said Kathryn Mary Wakim, PhD, a recent graduate from the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Rochester and the first author of the study.

"What's really hard is not playing the game. What we wanted to measure was how the brain holds back a response under certain task conditions," she added. Difficulty withholding inappropriate responses are thought to be a central issue in addiction. Researchers found that participants diagnosed with both HIV and cocaine dependence had a difficult time holding back behavioural responses while playing the game, changes which were also reflected in brain activity. A companion study also found similar results while brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG). Brain activity during response withholding in HIV+ participants in recovery from cocaine dependence was different than brain activity in HIV- participants in recovery.

"Currently, when someone who is HIV positive enters a recovery program they are treated in much the same fashion as any other person with an addiction issue," said Foxe. "But our findings show that they, very likely, need to be treated differently or more intensively. HIV and drug addiction should be a dual diagnosis when it comes to recovery, and we will need to design specific targeted intervention approaches for this population, given their unique vulnerability," Foxe added.

"When people with HIV relapse, it's a big deal. The majority of participants in our study contracted HIV - not by injecting cocaine - but by having unprotected sex," Wakim said. "Relapse is an outcome that should be minimized in this population because cocaine use is strongly associated with risky sexual behaviour, which makes the spread of HIV more likely when a relapse occurs," she added.

Additional co-authors are Edward Freedman, Ciara Molloy, Madalina Tivarus, Nicole Vieyto, and Zhewei Cao with the University of Rochester, and Armin Heinecke at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The research was supported with funding from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by the University of Rochester Center for AIDS Research, which is funded through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Changes in brain hinder addiction recovery in those HIV positive: Study - Devdiscourse

Neuroscience

Social cognitive abilities are associated with objective isolation but not perceived loneliness – PsyPost

New research provides evidence that social isolation is associated with reduced social perception and emotion recognition skills. The findings, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, suggest that social cognitive capacity predicts objective isolation but not feelings of loneliness.

Loneliness has been increasingly recognized as a major societal problem population studies have shown that it has a higher impact on mortality rates than hypertension and obesity, explained study author ukasz Okruszek, the head of the Social Neuroscience Lab at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Importantly, it has been emphasized that the feeling of loneliness is driven mostly by ones perception of social relationships rather than by objective qualities of social relationships per se. The same relationship (e.g. marriage) may be perceived as either loving and caring or detached and unaffectionate, depending on ones personal experiences, attitudes, and needs.

Thus, while loneliness can be linked to objective social isolation, the former does not implicate the latter, Okruszek explained. People may often report feeling lonely even despite maintaining numerous social ties. Given the important role that cognitive processes play in our appraisals of social relationships, we decided to examine the association between both subjective and objective social isolation and cognitive processes that underlie processing and interpretation of social information.

In the study, 252 individuals (aged 1850) with no history of psychiatric or neurological disorders completed assessments of subjective loneliness and objective social isolation. Objective social isolation was measured by asking the participants the number of relatives with whom they were in regular contact, could seek help from, and could confide in. Subjective loneliness, on the other hand, was measured by asking the participants the extent to which they agreed with statements such as No one really knows me well and I feel isolated from others.

The participants also completed several validated tests of social cognitive capacity, such as the ability to recognize others emotional states and infer someone elses state of mind.

The researchers found that those with a higher level of objective social isolation tended to exhibit worse social cognitive capacity. However, this was not the case for subjective feelings of loneliness.

Contrary to our hypotheses, we observed that social perception and emotion recognition were associated with objective social isolation, but not loneliness, Okruszek told PsyPost. In contrast, a tendency to attribute hostile intentions in ambiguous social situations (a hostility bias) was associated with both objective social isolation and loneliness. This finding suggests that social cognitive biases may be among the targets for interventions that are aimed at reducing loneliness.

But more research is needed on the longitudinal associations between social cognitive abilities and social isolation.

While we have shown which cognitive mechanisms are linked with loneliness and objective social isolation, the trajectories linking these findings with health outcomes observed in lonely and isolated individuals are still to be explored, Okruszek said. Previous studies have found that structural and functional abnormalities may be observed in lonely individuals in key brain structures that are involved in the processing of social information.

In addition, the feeling of loneliness may negatively impact heart rate variability, which can serve as an indicator of the ability to regulate activity in response to unknown and potentially threatening stimuli in the environment. Thus, the goal of our further studies is to examine the relationship between cognitive mechanisms, activity of brain networks during social information processing and physiological (reduced heart rate variability) markers in lonely individuals.

As noted above, loneliness is a major public health challenge, and its prevalence and importance is even more pronounced given the global pandemic, the consequences of which will likely be felt for years if not decades, Okruszek added. We believe it is critically important to understand how loneliness influences health and quality of life, and hope that this work, along with that of others, will ultimately benefit society.

The study, Owner of a lonely mind? Social cognitive capacity is associated with objective, but not perceived social isolation in healthy individuals, was authored by . Okruszek, A. Piejka, M. Krawczyk, A. Schudy, M. Wisniewska, K. Zurek, and A. Pinkham.

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Social cognitive abilities are associated with objective isolation but not perceived loneliness - PsyPost

Neuroscience

UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief States: ‘After Careful Examination of These Original Material, Neuroscience [Journal] Found No Evidence of Manipulation of the…

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UPDATE: Editor-in-Chief States: 'After Careful Examination of These Original Material, Neuroscience [Journal] Found No Evidence of Manipulation of the...

Neuroscience

IIT-Gandhinagar Opens Application Process For PG Programmes In Cognitive Science, Society And Culture – NDTV

The application process will conclude on January 20

Image credit: IIT Gandhinagar Press Release

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Gandhinagar) is inviting applications for the post graduate (Masters) programmes in Cognitive Science, Society and Culture. The students can apply for the programmes on the official website- iitgn.ac.in. For M.Sc (Cognitive Science) programme, students have to apply on the official website- cogs.iitgn.ac.in/cogs-msc and for MA (Society and Culture), apply at hss.iitgn.ac.in/masc.

The application process will conclude on January 20. "Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both admission tests and interviews for the courses will be conducted online. Applications for these two courses can be obtained from the following link - admissions.iitgn.ac.in/pgadmission," the release mentioned. The entrance exam and interviews will be conducted online due to Covid-19, the dates of which will be informed later.

The M.Sc in Cognitive Science will cover industry roles such as Educators, User Experience (UX), Linguistic analysts, Data analysts, Product developers/designers, AI engineers, Cognitive rehabilitation, Robotics, consumer behaviour etc, academic roles- Teaching or Research in, Human-Computer Interface, Neuroscience, Decision Making, etc. and International Ph.D. in opportunities.

In the MA programme in Society and Culture, the students will get familiar with academic roles such as Teaching or Research in Ecological Sciences and Public Policy, among others, and industry roles- Journalism, Advertising/media, Communications, Writing, Human resources. The students will also get an opportunity to do doctorate (Ph.D.) from varsity abroad and work with non-profit organisations (NGOs). "The M.A. in Society and Culture provides for fundamental learning, debates, and methods in the disciplines of literature, sociology, anthropology, political science, and history. The two-year masters program emerges from a conviction that students need to be trained to understand the social and political context they are part of," the release mentioned.

Prof Jaison. A. Manjaly, Head, Discipline of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar, said, The interdisciplinary nature of all the courses at IIT Gandhinagar makes a student's learning experience highly enriching. The M.A. in Society and Culture offers students diverse perspectives on social and cultural factors with a nuanced and more in-depth understanding of their context. The M.Sc. in Cognitive Science, on the other hand, offers a deeper understanding of mind, brain, and cognition. These programs are also uniquely aligned to the IITGN's vision to enable lifelong learning among the students.

The candidates required financial assistance can apply for 'On-Campus Employment Opportunities Program. "The Institute also encourages the M.Sc. (Cognitive Science) and M.A. (Society and Culture) students to present their research work at national and international conferences, and provides travel scholarships of up to Rs. 60,000," the release read.

In both programs, students will have unique research experiences like conducting field-work, conducting ethnographic research in the old city of Ahmedabad, visiting historical and archeological sites in Gujarat, conducting experiments in the state of the art cognitive science lab, traveling across the country through the IIT Gandhinagar Explorer Fellowships, taking advantage of the national and international academic and industrial internship opportunities and much more. Exposure to international faculty is another highlight of these programs, it mentioned.

Cognitive Science is a fast-growing emerging field that works at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, computer science, neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence while the Society and Culture program provides exposure to key disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences including, history, culture studies, literature, translation studies, sociology, political science and anthropology. For details, please visit the website- iitgn.ac.in.

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IIT-Gandhinagar Opens Application Process For PG Programmes In Cognitive Science, Society And Culture - NDTV

Neuroscience

Promoting Love and Peace Across Generations through Science and Global Partnerships – Yale School of Medicine

The environmental influence on a childs social, emotional, and cognitive development is undeniable. Unfortunately, almost half of our worlds children are at risk of not reaching their full developmental potential. The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for everyone, but little is known about the long-term adverse impact this may have on the worlds most vulnerable children currently living in countries with ongoing threats of violence, displacement, and conflict. Unfortunately, much of these dangers have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Peacebuilding initiatives, particularly during the early childhood years, are more important than ever as the international community prepares to navigate a post-pandemic world.

When looking for contributors to a special issue tackling the concepts of Love and Fear in the medical journal Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, Sue Carter, Distinguished University Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University, and an expert in the endocrinology of love, reached out to Dr. James F. Leckman, Neison Harris Professor in the Yale Child Study Center and Professor of Pediatrics, to provide insight into the importance of early childhood peacebuilding initiatives that target young children and their families.

Dr. Leckman assembled a team of experts and practitioners in the field of early childhood development (ECD) and peacebuilding around the globe including notable colleagues from Yale University and the Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC) to partner with for this special journal issue. Yale contributors consist of Dr. James F. Leckman, Catherine Panter-Brick, Ph.D., Angelica Ponguta, Ph.D., M.P.H., Rima Salah, Ph.D., Franz J. Hartl, J.D., Michael F. McCarthy, M.A., and N. Shemrah Fallon. This international collaboration resulted in the seminal paper Love and Peace Across Generations: Biobehavioral Systems and Global Partnerships.

The paper emphasizes the importance of the early childhood years on a persons lifelong development, a focus that was widely championed by Yale Professor Emeritus of Psychology, the late Edward Zigler, widely known as the founding father of Head Start who was a pioneer in the field of early childhood development, and a champion for the rights of children. The paper outlines in detail, the link between neuroscience and peacebuilding, particularly the influence that neuropeptides have in influencing social interactions, attachment, love, fear, trauma, compassion, and empathy. The paper also specifies the role of parents in providing nurturing environments. Furthermore, the authors highlight successful early childhood development initiatives that have been implemented in conflict-affected countries as well as argue that it is imperative for our next generation of youth to play an active and leading role in peacebuilding initiatives.

The authors call on the international community to address four key action points that support young children and their families:

The open access journal article is available to the public and can be downloaded along with the complete special journal issue.

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Promoting Love and Peace Across Generations through Science and Global Partnerships - Yale School of Medicine

Neuroscience

NESTRE Believes Sport Performance Is From the Neck Up and Aims to Train the Mind and Brain Accordingly – SportTechie

Our Startups series looks at companies and founders who are innovating in the fields of athlete performance, fan engagement, team/league operations and other high-impact areas in sports. If youd like to be considered for this series, tell us about your mission.

* * * * *

Worlds shortest elevator pitch: NESTRE combines neuroscience, performance and AI machine learning to help people get mentally and cognitively better.

Company: NESTRE

Location: Orlando, Florida

Year founded: 2018

Website/App: https://nestreperformance.com/Funding round to date: Pre-Seed. We will be going into a Seed Round probably in Q2, but we're currently in Pre-Seed funding. Were in a bridge funding round right now.

Who are your investors? Weve raised $1.6 million. Investors include Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Calvin Johnson Jr. and former Lions teammate Rob Sims. Toby Redshaw, former VP of Verizon 5G and Infoworld Top 25 Global CTO and Information Week Top 50 Global CIO. The Minority Entrepreneur Institute. Florcy Morisset, former strategy lead at Netflix and Dell Technologies. Moaz Hamid, formerly with Palm Inc., Microsoft and Google, now Founder and Managing Partner of mvm Ventures. Former Nike executive Mark Hochgesang, of Oregon Sports Angels, as well as global sports and health tech accelerator, leAD Sports, and global real estate developer and owners of Tottenham, Tavistock.

Are you looking for more investment? Yes.

Tell us about yourself, CEO & Founder Dr. Tommy Shavers: I was born in Niagara Falls, N.Y., raised in South Florida. Igrew up loving sports and loving learning. I played college football at the University of Central Florida, was ateamcaptain.Had the unfortunate experience of suffering several head injuries that ended my playing career, and also experienced, as a result, severe cognitive impairment and decline for several years. I was told by my doctor those things don't get better--they only get worse. This was around the time when conversations around CTE were becoming apparent. I chose not to give in to that narrative and created a model for self-recovery. I started with the premise: If the brain can be injured, it serves to reason that it functions like a muscle. And if it functions like a muscle, it serves to reason it could be rehabbed. I created my own cognitive conversion model and self-recovered, I had the opportunity to share this at a global health catalyst summit at Harvard. That became the seed and catalyst for NESTRE, my vision and dedication to help people know they can get better. And not just from mental and cognitive challenges, but the opportunities to increase the mental and cognitive performance. I really got inspired by the neuroscience of neuroplasticity and connected with some of the world's top experts and formed NESTRE. That's our focus, mission and passionto help build a better world with the human in mind. We've yet to tap into our human wellness and performance potential.

Who are your co-founders/partners? Right now, Julius Thomas is a partner but hes about to take on the role as co-founder. Julius [former NFL tight end] has an incredible story. Retired from the game, really still somewhat in his prime, to pursue his personal passion of helping people get better and increase quality of life from mental and cognitive perspectives. He pursued a Doctorate in psychology with a focus on mental health and neuroscience, and he's been an incredible partner along the way in the work we've done.

Former Pro Bowl tight end Julius Thomas is a NESTRE partner who has pursued a doctorate in psychology with a focus on mental health and neuroscience.

How does your product/service work? The NESTRE app, the vision is: we want it to essentially create the first digital environment for people to better both their mind and braingiving users access to the world of neuroscience and AI machine learning to help them get better, perform better and feel better. As I said, the purpose of the app is creating a digital experience to better both the mind and the brain. From the sports perspective, its understanding how mental wellness and cognitive performance are core aspects of the sports and performance world. We're really leveraging our experience and expertise in the sports world, mental wellness and neuroscience, really to take it to the next level, as mental health and cognitive performance are becoming core focuses in the performance space.

What problem is your company solving? If you look around the sports world, the mental health challenges that have been apparent, some of the athletes weve seen, the narrative has typically been either a fatalistic or stigmatized narrative or it's been a siloed narrative. Performance-based has typically been focusing on the neck down. What we're looking to do is really to change the narrative and shift the paradigm when it comes to mental and cognitive strength training. That mental health and cognitive performance are really integrated, and we all need the opportunity to get better and be stronger in these areas. Our first and most important workout really starts with the neck up. We really want to change this narrative about mental and cognitive capacity, performance, wellness, and really say, This is the first strength training that is a value to everyone when it comes to development, wellness, performance and desired outcomes.

What does your product cost and who is your target customer? We have a freemium subscription, and a B2B, B2C model from $9.99 to $79.99 annually. We also have a B2B partnership service model. We break our customers into three segments: the required performer, the desired performer and the everyday performing population. For us, its being able to target all three of these groups, whether it's someone wanting to recover their mental and cognitive dynamics or enhance their ability to perform better or just everyday performance sports individuals. The piece that's important for us is we really see life. Sports are performance. Everyday life is a performance. We're also leveraging the core aspects of sports, not just at the highest level, but at every level. That's how we break the world down into the world of performers because we're all performing on an everyday basis.

How are you marketing your product? We spent a lot of time over the last couple of years really building a strategic network. As we look at our go-to-market strategy, really leveraging our network relationships in the wellness, sports and performance world with Calvin Johnson and our other athletes that are investors. And, really, the halo effect of the relationships we have, with professional athletes to professional organizations, combined with strategic performance marketing and an organic growth strategy, is really how we're looking to get our product to market. We've been building that over the last couple of years, as we look to move that forward with some of these partnerships we have.

NFL Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson, the former Detroit Lion known as 'Megatron,' is a key investor in NESTRE.

How do you scale, and what is your targeted level of growth? Were looking at 200,000 downloads by the end of 2022. We have a B2B, B2C hybrid approach, really scaling through our relationships in the sports industry, athletic programs, sports organizations, and then also with sports performance wellness clubs. There are opportunities for us to complement the values of where fitness, wellness and performance reside, in bringing this next level of wellness performance and fitness from the neck up.

Who are your competitors, and what makes you different? This may sound clich, but it's not. Were looking to leverage, educate and advance the science of neuroplasticitythat the mind and the brain can change. In one sense, we're rooting for everyone that's showing we can make a difference in bettering people's mental and cognitive ability. That's one thing. On the other hand, I'd say from a user journey, user-cost perspective, the siloed space typically is when you have Calm or Headspace that are typically in the mindfulness or the cognitive training aspects of it. In general, the wellness and cognitive training apps would really be considered where the level of competition would be at.

Whats the unfair advantage that separates your company? There are a couple of things we think really separates us in a unique way. The expertise and lived experience aspects of what we have. Our chief scientific officer is Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg. He's one of the foremost leaders in the areas of brain function, one of the early pioneers of neuroplasticity in cognitive fitness. Also, to the uniqueness of what we're doing in really personalizing the betterment experience, we believe that's what neuroplasticity is really telling us is there's an opportunity to truly personalize how an individual can get better. We've created our mindset profile, which we really believe separates us in a really unique way in that we're discovering users unique mental framework as they come into the app. Then, we're customizing their in-app experience. Think about going to a high-end or elite training facility or a personal trainer. The whole goal is how to train in a way that best fits your unique makeup to get the best outcomes. We're building that into the app experience. We really believe this is a differentiator for us, and as we help people get better, it allows us to get smarter and to continue to personalize better at scale.

After Dr. Tommy Shavers suffered severe cognitive decline from football head injuries, he developed NESTRE as a model for self-recovery.

What milestone have you recently hit or will soon hit? We'll soon have our first live Neuro-Strength training rooms up in the market in mid-to-late January in Orlando in the Lake Nona Performance Club. The app will be in-market in late February, early March. So, Im really excited about getting really close to launch.

In what ways have you adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? Our original go-to-market was with our NESTRE Neuro-Strength training facilities, and with the vision of being the first to scale mental and cognitive fitness and strength training facilities across the country. We're still looking to do that. We were literally coming back from finalizing one of our partnerships with a professional sports organization in March 2020 when the world shut down. Our vision and roadmap really pivoted, and it gave us an opportunity to look at the world differently in the sense of, How can we add this value in the landscape that isnt limited to face-to-face interaction? Our digital solution was further down on our roadmap, and so it allowed us to really reverse that and to bring our digital solution to the forefront to allow us to move forward. As weve gotten a little more stable, it's really given us an incredible opportunity to actually bring all of our solutions to market our NESTRE mindset profile, our NESTRE app and our NESTRE Neuro-Strength training facilities, and market in an integrative and standalone way. COVID presented some really unique challenges, but it's also given us unique opportunities to really think about how we help people get better, considering the landscape of the mental and cognitive challenges people are dealing with either from COVID or the pandemic. In general, we really see that mental and cognitive health is and will continue to be a premium moving forward.

Beyond the pandemic, what obstacles has your company had to overcome? Just being a startup. One of the things that can't be overlooked is the data shows less than 3% of all funding goes to founders of color or female founders. The challenge of raising capital, we've been fortunate to have a great opportunity to do that. But also, the uniqueness of combining the things we're doing at a really high level. We're taking serious science, innovation and technology in the sports place, both live and digital. Your typical startup is taking one thing to market in a really concise way. We believe being able to have three stand-alone and integrated solutions has been a challenge on the front-end, but will give us incredible positioning, leverage and strength as we get in the market and move forward.

What are the values that are core to your brand? The first is people. Our vision is to help build a better world with humans in mind. Everything we do is about people, it's people centric. It's built off my own personal lived experience. We know if we're helping people get better and increase quality of life, then we're being true to our mission and core values. The second is integrity with everything we do. This is a personal value that has become an organizational value. It really means to be sound. We really want to be true to who we are, true to what we do, sound in every way possible as we move forward. The third is what we refer to as confident humility. What we mean by confident humility is its this interplay between having the ability and the confidence to see the future before it happens. Being unafraid of risks. Really having an entrepreneur and innovative spirit, in the sense that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there, right? We're really looking to move things forward in ways that traditionally have waited for solutions that take years, when people are saying, How can you help me now? Were really anchoring in this. We're confident in doing things that haven't been done before and unafraid of taking those types of approaches. At the same time, having the humility to understand we don't know what we don't know. There's constant room for growth. We really want to be a smart company, with this vision of having applied solutions, that as we're helping people get better we're getting smarter as we grow. We always want to have this learners spirit and mindset in the balance between the two of those things. We're fearless and we're mindful at the same time.

What does success ultimately look like for your company? I go back to our vision. Our vision is to help build a better world with the human in mind. We look down the line, three, four, five years, really being entrenched as a pioneer leader in the space of human development, human potential and mental health performance. Being a known company, an organization that's on the forefront of moving forward the science and the solutions to help people get better. If we're doing those things, we're heading in the right direction.

What should investors or customers know about youthe person, your life experiencesthat shows they can believe in you? First and foremost, this is personal. It's been a lived experience for me. I know what it's like to suffer and experience mental and cognitive challenges. I also know what its like to perform at the highest level, both mentally and cognitively. This is a space that not only is near and dear to me. I also have a personal passion, and I'm uniquely suited to navigate this space and at a high level. Also, just the ability to lead, inspire and to work with incredible people, with the team we've developed and brought around us. It's important to know the kind of leadership and the kind of team you have that can move a company like NESTRE forward and do it at a high level. I love what I do. There was a point in which I was told I wouldn't be able to function in the way I do now. Defying odds is built into my DNA, and I look forward to taking on this challenge.

As Dr. Tommy Shavers puts it, NESTRE is a performance, not a pathology, company, committed to 'change the narrative and the stigma' about mental health.

How does NESTRE help with mental health? Its a core part of our work. I had six to seven concussive blows within a three-week span that ended my career. The mental health and cognitive health challenges I experienced and suffered, along with the impairment decline, is really the core foundation of why we built this. The reason why we refer to ourselves as a strength company is because what neuroplasticity is saying is, whether it's pathology or performance, there's an ability to move toward better and that comes from the ability to strengthen what's there. What we've said is were a performance--not a pathology-company. Were training, not a treatment company. Were really trying to change the narrative and the stigma around this idea of mental health, as opposed to mental strength, mental strength training, or cognitive health and cognitive strength and cognitive sprint training. What it's doing is it's bringing us all together in saying no matter where you are, we all have an opportunity to get better and placing the person struggling with anxiety or stress and the person that's in the top 1% of the performance in the same community really helps us all to realize the human side of who we are. It really begins to destigmatize the narrative around it. We stay in this training space by saying, We're here for everyone as an opportunity to be able to get better. Mental health is a huge part of that for us, from a day-to-day basis, understanding the challenges in the sports world, but also an everyday lived experience. Its unfortunate that the current narrative is typically said that in order to embrace this, you have to embrace being broken in some way. What we're saying is: That's not the case. Mental health and mental strength is a part of all of our lived experiences. Everyone deals with mental and cognitive load on a daily basis. We really wanted to place all those individuals in the same community moving toward the same goal of getting better.

Do you have a favorite quote about leadership? Everything starts with being a CEO of self. I use that a lot with our team and individuals. That means everything: Leadership, accountability, wellness, self-care values. Another one is not taking for granted the privilege and power of influence.

Question? Comment? Story idea? Let us know at [emailprotected]

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NESTRE Believes Sport Performance Is From the Neck Up and Aims to Train the Mind and Brain Accordingly - SportTechie

Immunology

Hyris Fully Embraces the Immunology Sector to Better Fight COVID-19 and Beyond, Presenting Its New, Disruptive T-Cell Test to the International…

LONDON, Dec. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the COVID-19 pandemic keeps causing concerns, with new variants spreading worldwide, it is now widely recognized that we must move beyond a "test&trace" only approach. World leaders and health institutions today aim to achieve high immunity rates among the population, facing the unprecedented challenge of a worldwide vaccination campaign against an emerging virus, for which no vaccine existed until a year ago.

"Alongside with our genetic tests to detect SARS-CoV-2 anywhere, and at any time, we knew that we had to put our knowledge at the service of vaccination campaigns even further, leveraging the versatility of our AI platform to deliver a new kind of immunology test." So says Stefano Lo Priore, Founder and CEO at Hyris, a global biotech company renowned for its innovative and inclusive approach to genetic analysis. Hyris offers a wide range of solutions to support the fight against COVID-19 worldwide. Several Medical professionals and decision-makers have already made use of the Hyris SystemTM to reliably detect the presence of all the main Variants of Concern.

As a key part of a long-term strategy to fight COVID-19, Hyris keeps supporting Immunology Research, now presenting its new test to detect the body's T Cell immune response to SARS-CoV-2 on 17 December 2021, at "A-WISH", Alicante-Winter Immunology Symposium in Health. Organized by the Spanish Society of Immunology (SEI) and the University of Alicante (UA), the "A-WISH" Symposium promotes the advancement of the study of immunology, infectious diseases and vaccinology as well as Life and Health Sciences. This first edition specifically aims to address strategies for the COVID-19 response and pandemic preparedness, the development of the vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and the immunological response to infection and different COVID-19 vaccines.

"Until now, antibody testing has been considered the only tool to measure immunity to SARS-CoV-2," explains Isabella Della Noce, Chief Biologist at Hyris, "but individuals exposed to the virus or vaccinated do not necessarily develop or maintain antibody positivity. That is why we need to focus on T-Cells as they act together with antibodies to prevent pathogen spread and remove virus-infected cells. An individual negative to an antibody test could still be immune, thanks to responsive T-Cells. Therefore, measuring T-Cells response is a new disruptive approach to fight SARS-CoV-2."

The new Hyris T-Cells clinical Test was developed through exclusive agreements between Hyris and some illustrious healthcare scientific organizations, such as with Singapore Duke-NUS Medical School and New York Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, both well renowned worldwide for their publications and studies within the immunology and virology fields.

"This new test enables quick evaluation of T-cell immune responses in COVID-19 convalescent patients as well as vaccinated people, also indicating where patients are responsive due to vaccination, virus exposure or both,"specifies Lorenzo Colombo, Global Chief Technical Officer at Hyris. "And that's where PCR testing comes into the picture. Not only data show that PCR is fully comparable in accuracy and sensitivity with other assays traditionally used to measure the body's immune response, but it is more convenient and faster as a widely used diagnostic technology. This is indeed a new dimension for vaccine strategies."

This new test workflow has been already adopted by international research projects and committees, such as VACCELERATE, the European Program for the acceleration of phase 2 & 3 COVID-19 vaccine trials and the creation of a pan-European platform for clinical trial design and conduct, and the Spanish governmental Project Ene-Covid, the "Estudio Nacional de sero-Epidemiologa de la Infeccin por SARS-CoV-2 en Espaa".

"To support and validate vaccination campaigns worldwide, we need much greater access to accurate tests, especially in the Immunology field," concludes Lo Priore. "This disruptive approach can also be applied to other immunology areas, such as oncology or related to even more specific human pathogens. It can also focus strategically on specific patients' categories, such as, for example, immune-compromised, transplanted or cancer patients. Our immune system really is the perfect "source-code" to our knowledge, about how to take care of life."

The 2021 "A-WISH" Symposium will bring together a group of internationally recognized immunologists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, epidemiologists, virologists and professionals from a wide range of disciplines in the biomedical field to present and discuss the most recent results of top-tier immunology scientific research and innovations. Hyris will participate in the discussion, aiming to accelerate the development of new approaches to disease prevention.

Contact a Hyris expert to discover how to perform beyond your current diagnostic capability, atinfo@hyris.net.

Related Images

Image 1: Hyris presents its disruptive T-Cells test to detect the body's immune response to SARS-CoV-2.

A doctor holding a tablet showing the HYRIS bAPP

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com.

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Hyris Fully Embraces the Immunology Sector to Better Fight COVID-19 and Beyond, Presenting Its New, Disruptive T-Cell Test to the International...