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Brain Sensors

Game controller measures heart rate, respiration, temperature, perspiration

Stanford Professor Gregory Kovacs and researcher Corey McCall claim that they are able to “read the brain” by measuring heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, perspiration and other body processes.  Their goal is to sense emotions.

The back of an Xbox 360 controller was replaced with a 3-D printed plastic module packed with sensors. Small metal pads on the controller’s surface measure the user’s heart rate, blood flow, and both the rate of breath and how deeply the user is breathing. Another light-operated sensor gives a second heart rate measurement, and accelerometers measure how frantically the person is shaking the controller.

Software gauges the intensity of the game.  The researchers then compared this data to generate an overall picture of the player’s level of mental engagement.

While such non-invasive measurements of health are important, and can be effective for the gaming applications of Stanford’s focus, the only way to view brainwaves is through EEG.   Scientists are developing less obtrusive EEG methods, with promising results aimed at diagnosing and treating brain diseases.

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Children fitness Monitoring Wearables

Gamified wearable activity monitor for kids

LeapFrog has embraced the wearables trend with a gamified fitness band for children aged 4-7.

The Leapband screen displays a personalized virtual pet  which guides a child through a series of activity challenges and games. The more active they are, the more points they win, and the more games they are able to unlock of the 50 offered.  Parents can monitor daily activity,  exporting the information via a companion app.

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Crowdfunding Sensors

Crowdfunded handheld molecular sensor

SCiO is miniature spectrometer that sends chemical make-up information about food, medicine and plants to one’s smartphone.  It is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

The device shines near-infrared light on a sample, exciting the molecules and making them vibrate.  Each object has its own optical signature.  The spectrometer determines what an object is, based on the infrared light that reflects back to the scanner. The app takes the data and compares it to a cloud-based database of objects.  It sends a match to the user’s smartphone.

The food app shows calories, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.  It can gauge produce quality, ripeness, and spoilage in cheeses, fruits, vegetables, sauces, salad dressings, and cooking oils.  Fitness apps can show how many calories one is burning.

Categories
Ears Wearables

iPhone controlled hearing aids

ReSound LiNX,  Beltone First and the Starkey Halo are hearing aids that work directly with iPhones.  Audio is sent to the device as it would a Bluetooth earpiece.  It can also act as a remote control.

One’s phone can be a hearing aid’s microphone,  record information about when and where it is adjusted, and track how often it’s used.  An audiologist can use this information to manage the device’s settings.  Lost hearing aids can be located via GPS.

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Eyes Ultrasound

Ultrasound improves virtual “touch”

Ultrahaptics uses ultrasound waves to make one feel as if he/she is  touching virtual objects and surfaces with bare hands.

It’s creator, a University of Bristol graduate student, claims that it improves upon touch-free interfaces such as Kinect and Leap Motion by reflecting air pressure waves off the hand to create different sensations for each fingertip.

Applications could include interacting with moving objects in virtual reality games, or improving navigation for the visually impaired by projecting the sensation of Braille letters onto fingers in midair.

Categories
Eyes

Adaptive optics detect diabetes eye damage early

Indiana University professors Ann Elsner and Stephen Burns have developed an optic imaging method to detect the earliest stages of diabetic retinopathy.

The device uses small mirrors to reflect light into the eye to overcome optical imperfections.  It detected damage spread widely across the retina in early disease states, including changes to blood vessels not thought to occur until the disease advances.  Researchers were able to observe a magnified version of eye capillaries in in video format, enabling them to watch blood cells moving through blood vessels. 

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Brain Ears Parkinson's

Cochlear implant pulses deliver DNA for gene therapy

UNSW Professor Gary Housley used electrical pulses from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, successfully regrowing auditory nerves.  Until now, the “bionic ear” has been largely constrained by the neural interface.

In the study, Professor Housley and colleagues used the cochlear implant electrode array for novel “close-field” electroporation to transduce mesenchymal cells lining the cochlear perilymphatic canals with a naked complementary DNA gene construct driving expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and a green fluorescent protein reporter. The focusing of electric fields by particular cochlear implant electrode configurations led to surprisingly efficient gene delivery to adjacent mesenchymal cells. The resulting BDNF expression stimulated regeneration of spiral ganglion neurites, which had atrophied 2 weeks after ototoxic treatment, in a bilateral sensorineural deafness model..

Integration of this technology into other “bionic” devices, such as electrode arrays used in deep brain stimulation, could create opportunities for safe, directed gene therapy of complex neurological disorders.

Categories
Brain

Transparent neuron imaging clarifies connections

MIT‘s Kwanghun Chung and Stanford‘s Karl Deisseroth‘s CLARITY allows researchers to see directly into optically transparent whole brains or thick blocks of mouse brain tissue.

 Such studies in living people are impossible, because most neuron-tracing methods require genetic engineering or injection of dye in living animals.

The hope is that this will one day lead to a way to help people with severe mental illness or brain diseases.

Applying CLARITY to whole mouse brains, the researchers viewed fluorescently labeled neurons in areas ranging from outer layers of the cortex to deep structures such as the thalamus. They also traced individual nerve fibers through 0.5-millimetre-thick slabs of formalin-preserved autopsied human brain — orders of magnitude thicker than slices currently imaged.

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Brain

Analog path to neuromorphic computing

In her roadmap, Georgia Tech professor Jennifer Hasler emphasizes analog processing’s key role in neuromorphic systems, specifically field programmable analog arrays.  She claims Georgia Tech’s FGAAs “award the programmability and capability of the Anadigm components” by housing “hundreds of thousands of programmable parameters, enabling them to be used for system level computing, not just analog glue logic.“

Hasler believes the path to desktop neuromorphic systems will require analog system-on-chip approaches to achieve the low power devices necessary to emulate billions of brain-like neurons connected by trillions of learning synapses.  She predicts that desktop neuromorphic systems that rival the compactness of the human brain will require a 100 million times reduction in power over the digital supercomputers simulating them today.

Categories
Cancer Sensors

Cancer screening bra insert

First Warning, the breast cancer sensing bra company, has changed its strategy.  They will now use the same temperature-fluctuation sensors from their smart bra in a device inserted into one’s existing bra.  The data will be sent to a user’s smartphone.

The sensor finds cancer by detecting tiny metabolic temperature changes caused by cancerous cells in a tumor. The temperature readings are sent back to a global library where they’re run through a proprietary algorithm. Then the results are sent back to a user’s phone.

In small trials, the device has had a 74 percent correlation with mammography and may work better than a mammogram in patients in the early stages of cancer or with dense breast tissue.

Categories
Monitoring Parkinson's Sensors

Wearable sensors monitor Parkinson’s symptoms

Kinesia’s HomeView and ProView technologies provide standardized platforms to quantify Parkinson’s disease symptoms in the clinic and at home.

Physicians have the tools to quantify tremor, assess dyskinesia and measure bradykinesia remotely. A patient uses a take home kit, programmed to specific symptoms and treatments,to complete motor tests several times a day. The patient can also enter touch screen diary information about how they are feeling and when medications were taken. Physicians can view web-based reports including automated severity scoring and videos that show symptom changes during the day in response to treatments such as medication or deep brain stimulation.

Categories
Brain fMRI

PET and fMRI predict brain injury recovery

University of Liège professor Steven Laureys‘ recent study shows that PET scans fMRI were more reliable predictors of brain injury recovery than standardized bedside assessments by doctors.

Of 126 patients in the trial, 41 were in a persistent vegetative state, 81 were in a minimally conscious state and 4 had locked-in syndrome. PET correctly predicted the extent of recovery in the following year in 74% of patients, and fMRI in 56% of patients.

A third of the patients had been previously misdiagnosed. Of 41 patients whose doctors had diagnosed a vegetative state, 13 were found by a PET scan to have some level of consciousness. Of the 13, 9 regained consciousness within the year, 3 died of other causes,  and only one was still in a vegetative state.

It is not yet possible to detect hidden levels of consciousness with EEG.   If developed, this  would be an inexpensive way to continuously monitor patients.  Because of their size and cost, fMRI and PET scans cannot provide continuous monitoring.