Cognitive Technology and Pervasive NeuroTechnology

May 6, 2015, Neurogaming conference, San Francisco—Alvaro Fernandez from Sharpbrains moderated a panel on new technologies that are rapidly spreading into the commercial sectors. Panelists were Dan Chao from Halo Neuroscience, Santosh Mathan from Honeywell, Chris Berka from Advanced Brain Monitoring, and Evian Gordon from Brain Resource Company.

The industry is growing at an accelerated pace. Tracing patent filings as a proxy for company growth shows that’10 was an inflection point for patent filings. Many new patents are now in non-invasive and scalable technologies. The areas of highest new filings are eeg, neuro-monitoring, neuro-training, and trans-cranial stimulation. The latest aggregate valuation for the companies in the area is over $2B, and is due to a change from a medical focus to a consumer one. The opening markets include such targets as consumer research by companies like Nielson, healthcare, and wellness.

Companies are enhancing platform functions?
Gordon responded that one platform is for training and monitoring brain functions. the applications are more than just cognition, as corporations are using the technology for resilience and durability training. Other corporate functions are for interventions to address self efficacy and impulse control. Studies show that people continue to change habits after training.
Berka is focused on mobile and scalable functions. By combining up to 24 channels of eeg with cardiovascular and respiratory data, a person can extract sleep and daytime performance. All their apps and equipment are FDA approved, and all hardware and software are built to interpret and provide closed-loop feedback to the user. They have other medical apps and a specialized version for Major League Baseball teams for visualization. They are doing medical-grade devices for research.
Mathan declared that Honeywell is developing aerospace automation devices with man-in-the-middle architectures that measure inputs from the systems and the operators. The devices use cognitive training and trans-cranial stimulation in a dynamic training context. They combine many mental operations in the visual and numeric domains. Their training uses changing levels of difficulty that tracks improvements in brain functions and combines training and stimulation.
Chao works on wearable neurostimulators to change practices from drugs to medical devices. Typical patients have problems with depression or epilepsy. Previous treatments used implanted devices or drugs that inhibited many mental functions, so a wearable stimulator is a highly desired product.

Efficacy? FDA approvals?
Gordon noted that Europe is conducting a large-scale study with 1800 patients on brain tool efficacy. There are limits for levels of effectiveness, but the people at the FDA can help with the processing. for example cognition tools can be a predictor for better candidates for depression, etc. There are other indicators and even on-line assessments. the programs are available and some of the games provide outcomes and proof points of efficacy, and allow for self assessments. Internal studies at corporate users that track medical costs and claims against neurogame users provide indications for who the interventions apply to and who will benefit from the neuro devices and games.
Berka indicated that studies show safety and efficacy in many neuro technologies. One challenge is to get test populations that include a significant number of people. Larger samples can provide important information for general and categorized populations. At the same time, controls need to be in place to assure the personalized information is protected. The personalized information is available for distinct sub-types and can show changes over time. This personalized profile on functions like sleep and brain activity can become a part of your health records for follow up after traumatic injuries.

Enhanced sleep leads to better memory performance and cognition as well as other brain functions. One flaw in much of the current science is that researchers put people into a population and normalize to the population. This aggregation loses the individual. Practitioners can introduce interventions like games or stimulation in a closed loop fashion to direct changes. The brain integrates functions and transfers new skills to other fields calling for more integrated neuroscience.

Mathan noted that the whole neuro field addresses a broad audience, virtually everyone in the 18-65 year old range who use general reasoning and problem solving. There are a variety of measurements that show the contributions from interventions. All the studies check for changes due to the training and collect data from activities like game play to capture neural markers. One aspect is that these studies have to show applicability to work functions, so companies need t show quantized information in their promotional materials.
Chao called for looking at the future and showing proof through scientific research to show efficacy. There is a need for standard metrics and their differences from university research measurements, and value in developing test and development markers. Non-invasive functions are harder to measure due to noisy components. The industry needs more test subjects and more university-based research.

Ecosystem for test, assessment, and evaluation? Application to neurogaming?
Mathan concluded that a stratify and refine methodology could be like DNA and other science-based assessments.
Gordon stated a personalized level of detail can be important to make, but there is a combination of interests in the various fields.

Since technology changes so quickly so existing games are out of date soon, how do you run trials with long histories?
Gordon advocated a standard methodology that tests some core functions and basics as a constant. This allows for comparative analysis of benefits.
Berka commented that this problem is also a regulatory issue. Try to anticipate the future and us the big lag to get wrap-around clearances. Use the latest technology for early trials then update everything with the regulators.