Our rapidly changing environment is profoundly altering our brains and minds.
What does it mean for the future of society? How can we manage the risks?
WE EXPLORE AND TRACK THE DIVERSITY OF THE EVOLVING BRAIN AND MIND OF HUMANITY.
Unlike any other organ, the human brain constantly resculpts itself across the life span in response to life experience.
We are learning that changes in our stimulus and social environment have a far more profound impact on our brain physiology and mind than we have previously appreciated.
We work to measure, monitor and understand the interplay between life experience, brain physiology and our cognitive and mental health outcomes across the globe, and put forth insights that can help manage it for more positive outcomes.
Join us to understand and mitigate risks and enable the mental wellbeing of society.
Individuals
Take the MHQ to measure and manage your own mental wellbeing
Researchers
use our tools and open data to contribute to deeper insights
Companies
measure and manage the mental wellbeing of your workforce. Identify risks early on and take strategic action
Universities
measure and manage the mental wellbeing of your student body to track risks and take strategic action.
Government Agencies and non profits
Use our research to help design more effective policy and intervention
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
We take a cross disciplinary approach to understanding the influence of environment on brain and the relationship between brain and mental outcomes. Our research spans development of new tools for measurement, new approaches to signal processing and large-scale data acquisition and analytics.
Across the global English speaking population overall mental wellbeing declined 24 points in 2020 relative to 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The percentage of the population with clinical level mental health risks rose from 14% to 26%.
Read more in the Mental State of the World 2020
It used to be that younger people and older people fared better with a dip in middle age – known as the U-shaped curve of happiness. No longer. Younger generations have increasingly worse mental wellbeing overall and mood and outlook. 44% of those 18-24 have clinical level risks and challenges compared to only 6% of those 65+. This generational decline, already present in 2019 was exacerbated by the pandemic.
Read more in the Mental State of the World 2020
The brain ‘consumes’ stimulus that informs its wiring, development and behavior. Major things like education, transport and cell phones expand the scope and pace of stimulus the brain receives.
Complexity of the brain signal measured by EEG, or electrodes on the scalp, increases with aggregate consumption of these stimulus expanding factors. Complexity reflects the diversity of waveform patterns in the signal and may have significant cognitive consequences.
Read more in Nature Scientific Reports
There are many disparities in the brain signal between those with access and means to consume greater stimulus and those without. This shows the distribution of a feature of the brain signal called the Alpha oscillation between two extremes – those who are rural, less than primary educated and with no technology compared to those college-educated and digitally enabled.
The Alpha oscillation is thought to have a role in attention and mental imagery.
Read more in Nature Scientific Reports
