DIGITAL HEALTH + NEUROTECH
Building on his prior brain-controlled prosthetic work, Stanford’s Krishna Shenoy has developed a simpler way to study brain electrical activity, which he believes will lead to tiny, low-power, wireless brain sensors that would bring thought-controlled prosthetics into much wider use. The method involved decoding neural activity in aggregate, instead of “spike sorting.” Spike sorting must be […]
Clive Svendsen, Gad Vatine, and Cedars Sinai and Ben Gurion University of the Negev colleagues have recreated the blood-brain barrier outside of the body using induced pluripotent stem cells for the first time. In a study, the recreated bbb functioned as it would in the individual who provided the cells to make it. This could […]
Adam Gazzaley and UCSF colleagues have developed a focus-driven digital meditation program that improved attention and memory in healthy adults in a recent study. MediTrain tailors meditation session length to participant abilities, and challenges users to increase session time. Subjects received significant benefits in 6 weeks. On their first day, they focused on their breath […]
Miguel Nicolelis has developed a non-invasive system for lower-limb neurorehabilitation. Study subjects wore an EEG headset to record brain activity and detect movement intention. Eight electrodes were attached to each leg, stimulating muscles involved in walking. After training, patients used their own brain activity to send electric impulses to their leg muscles, imposing a physiological gait. With […]
University of Vermont researchers have developed an algorithm that detects anxiety and depression in children’s voices with 80 per cent accuracy, according to a recent study. Standard diagnosis involves a 60-90 minute semi-structured interview with a trained clinician and their primary care-giver. AI can make diagnosis faster and more reliable. The researchers used an adapted […]
Edward Chang and UCSF colleagues are developing technology that will translate signals from the brain into synthetic speech. The research team believes that the sounds would be nearly as sharp and normal as a real person’s voice. Sounds made by the human lips, jaw, tongue and larynx would be simulated. The goal is a communication method for […]
Charles Marmar, Adam Brown, and NYU colleagues are using AI-based voice analysis to detect PTSD with 89 per cent accuracy, according to a recent study. PTSD is typically determined by bias-prone clinical interviews or self-reports. The team recorded standard diagnostic interviews of 53 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with military-service-related PTSD, as well as 78 veterans without […]
NeuroSigma has received FDA clearance for its forehead patch which stimulates the trigeminal nerve during sleep to treat ADHD. The device won CE Mark approval in Europe in 2015. The approval was based on study of 62 subjects. Over four weeks, those who received the treatment showed a decrease in ADHD-RS by -31.4%. The control group showed a -18.4% decrease. […]
Alan Jasanoff and MIT colleagues are using MRI to monitor calcium activity at a much deeper level in the brain than previously possible, to show how neurons communicate with each other. The research team believes that this enables neural activity to be linked with specific behaviors. To create their intracellular calcium sensors, the researchers used […]
Luis Parada and Sloan Kettering colleagues are focusing on cancer stem cells as a new approach to glioblastoma. Like normal stem cells, cancer stem cells have the ability to rebuild a tumor, even after most of it has been removed, leading to cancer relapse and metastasis. According to Parada: “The pharmaceutical industry has traditionally used […]