☁️🍄 Issue No. 015: A Sixth Sense

Welcome back to Headlines, your weekly update on news and trends in mental health. Fantastic to see you again, and happy May, aka Mental Health Awareness Month! Not a subscriber yet? Join us below: 

This Sunday, we’re diving into the emerging world of tech that can help act as early warning signs for depression, anxiety, and more. Let’s get to it.

A SIXTH SENSE

When our mental health goes south, there’s often a lag between how we think we are and how we really are. 

From analyzing your voice to investigating your saliva, new tech could help fill in our blind spots. 

KNOW THYSELF 

Mental disorders can severely disrupt our ability to sense the state of our body, known as interoception.

• Patients suffering from major depressive disorder exhibit an impaired ability to perform interoceptive tests such as heartbeat perception.

• Those with generalized anxiety disorder displayed similar interoceptive dysfunctions.

• Individuals with a history of suicide attempts can hold their breath and keep their hand in icy water for far longer than those that don’t.

Thus, patients can sometimes be the last to know when they need help. This poses a paradox. Many of today’s mental health assessments rely on self-reported questionnaires, but we may be talking to unreliable narrators. 

The cost of those who slip through the cracks is significant. The National Alliance on Mental Health estimates that untreated mental illness costs the country up to $300B every year.

ME(N)TAL DETECTOR

Tapping in, a growing list of companies are engineering solutions to catch mental health challenges that may crop up unnoticed.  

Speaking volumes. Scientists have found significant acoustic differences in the voices of individuals suffering from depression. They’re more likely to speak in monotone, at a lower volume, and take frequent pauses. 

Vocal biomarker startup Kintsugi, which closed $20M last year, says it can detect notes of depression/anxiety in 20 seconds with 80% accuracy. Also innovating in voice tech, Sonde Health has identified 4K+ vocal features along with SF-based Ellipsis Health. 

Game on. A different take, thymia takes users out of the testing mindset, relaxing them into a low-stakes, whimsical setting — a mobile video game. As users play, the company collects markers such as attention, working memory, and eye movements to provide mental well-being insights. 

Dr. Robot. Feel Therapeutics combines machine learning with a continuous electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor to monitor emotional states and deliver personalized mental healthcare. Last year, it was granted a US patent for its emotion detection tech. 

Another AI-powered approach, Aiberry closed $8M this year and analyzes audio, visual, and language cues for mental health screenings and to help providers track progress. Elsewhere, research lab Hume AI is mapping the full spectrum of human expression.

Your face says it all. Singapore-based Mobio Interactive uses phone cameras to read microexpressions of the face, track intersection points, and pull face pigmentation to create a comprehensive mental health analysis. 

Next up, there’s skin-based stress sensors like Epicore Biosystems’ sweat patch and Xsensio’s skin chip, as well as emotion tracking wearables like the Happy Ring. Getting molecular, researchers have developed blood tests for anxiety and drawn links between saliva and suicidal ideation.

LOOKING AHEAD

We’d be remiss to not discuss privacy and data concerns. Any company dealing with mental health data should be vigilant, but companies collecting sensitive inputs like facial expressions and voice samples must be all the more careful. Depending on how this is handled, the business of detection could easily veer dystopian.

That’s especially worrying given the clear interest from Big Tech in this space. Apple, for example, is reportedly working on analyzing facial expressions, heart and respiration rates, and even typing patterns to detect mental health concerns. Vocal tone was also a component of Amazon’s scrapped wearable division, Halo.

Here, companies will need to answer hard questions: Just how reliable are these tools exactly? How much weight do we lend them? Do their diagnoses ever take precedence over our own judgment on when we need care? If so, at what point? 

Punchline: Tech can be extremely useful in alerting us when change is needed. But zooming out, the most powerful warning system already exists — friends and family who know you deeply and can sense when something’s off. Nurturing and strengthening those channels may prove to be the most crucial lever of all.

QUICK HITS

• No bad parts. A growing amount of digital IFS tools are popping up around the web.

• Dungeons & Dragons. Clinical psychologists are using tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) in therapy. 

• More cuts. Brightline lays off 20% of its staff, its second cut in six months. 

• Oh, Canada. Juno Pharmaceuticals receives approval from Health Canada to import ketamine amidst the country’s shortage. 

• Psychedelia drama. MindMed is fending off a corporate mini-coup; GBB Drink Lab is suing FSD Pharma for $53M.

• The Great Awakning. Psychedelic biotech startup Awakn Life Sciences reports 534% YoY revenue growth.

• Try everything. From animal encounters to grocery donations, one Ohio school is throwing everything it can at the youth mental health crisis. 

• Privacy update. What’s the state of mental health app privacy in 2023? Mozilla takes another look — see a list of apps ranked from best to worst.

NEWS & TRENDS

1) The lad’s chat

Rates of male loneliness are at staggering highs. Over 15% say they have zero close friends, less than 21% (vs. 49% of women) say they’ve received emotional support within the past week, and social stigma has led to a ballooning silent epidemic — over one in 10 men say they’re lonely but that they wouldn’t admit it. 

Enter men’s group chats. The “boy’s chat” is known for many things, to the point of meme-ification, but they’re starting to act as key points of connection in a world of increasing isolation. Helping guys get vulnerable, Slate’s Ian Lecklitner says his guy’s group chat practically saved his life. → Read more

2) Code shroom

A significant update for psychedelics as medicine: the American Medical Association has approved a CPT III billing code for psychedelic therapies — an essential step for seeking reimbursement from insurance. Full details about the code will be released in July 2023, and the code is set to go live in January 2024.

Of note, these codes are temporary—meant for emerging technologies—and are only the first step to more widespread insurance coverage. Still, it’s a big move for access and affordability across the industry.→ Read more

DEALS & DEBUTS

📚 Uwill, a college mental health startup, closed $30M in a Series A round led by Education Growth Partners. The company provides on-demand virtual therapy and online wellness events via its app.→ source

👋 HelloBetter, a German digital mental health therapeutics startup, announced a €7M Series A raise led by MassMutual Ventures. It plans to use the funds to expand into the US.→ source

🏩 Tia, a hybrid women’s healthcare clinic, is expanding its mental health offerings. The company is adding Groups, an eight-week program connecting women with shared experiences, and Coaching, an appointment to help patients work through emotions.→ source

👕 Kohl’s donated $3M to Children’s Wisconsin, a pediatric hospital, to support the opening of three additional mental health walk-in clinic locations. → source

🎒 Walgreens is partnering with nonprofit Mental Health America on a Back-to-School behavioral health campaign. It will help distribute fact sheets, educational materials, and more to 800+ schools across the country. → source

🥾 REI and Hipcamp are teaming up to sponsor #WeHikeToHeal, a month-long outdoor wellness initiative encouraging women’s mental and emotional health.→ source

🏈 The NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, and WNBA joined forces to raise awareness for mental health awareness month, marking the first time these organizations have come together to promote mental health. → source

💼 One Mind at Work, a global coalition of leaders across industries, announced the launch of Mental Health at Work Index, a comprehensive, standardized assessment tool for workplace mental health, making it available to all employers. → source

🎵 Sound Mind Network, an addiction recovery nonprofit, launched SMN Records, a record label meant to help provide a creative-based recovery alternative. → source

🚀 Medicinal Media, a new nonprofit dedicated to emphasizing beneficial media, launched its first project, a wellness media site. The startup’s mission is to help readers learn how to use media and art more mindfully and for better health.→ source

WHAT I’M READING

• Ibogaine trip report. Iboga is one of the most intense psychoactive substances around. A trip can last 30+ hours, often involves several rounds of “purging,” and is known to be an extremely effective treatment for opioid use disorder. Read one user’s trip report: “Iboga utterly astonished me.” → Erowid

Nice. Thanks for reading, y’all. And let me know if there are any burning topics or trends you’re hoping for me to dig into! You can reply directly to this email — I read and try to respond to every message. 

Here’s your meme for the week.

See you next Sunday!

-Mel