A boy addicted to the internet
has his brain scanned for research purposes at Daxing Internet Addiction
Treatment Center in Beijing, Feb. 22, 2014.
Startups are looking to disrupt the treatment
of brain disorders by merging technology and neuroscience. They claim that
advancements in brain imaging, coupled with the use of tiny electrical
currents, have allowed them to create headsets that can change the way
parts of the brain communicate. These startups also claim their products
could help treat a range of diseases, including depression, Alzheimer’s
and Parkinson’s.
One such company, Cerestim, is
leveraging advancements in how brain activity can be monitored and altered
to bring discoveries out of the laboratory and into the real
world. Cerestim is developing a
headset to treat depression and other disorders using a
technique called transcranial brain stimulation, which addresses a huge
gap in the current treatment methodology.
Brain disorders’ share of the total global burden of disability and mortality
is projected to rise from 11 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2020,
which would outpace even the anticipated increase in heart disease during
that time. The biggest problem facing caregivers is that up to 30 percent
of the afflicted cannot be treated with traditional pharmaceutical therapies,
according to the World Health Organization — and this is where
companies like Cerestim come in.
“Having a nonpharmacological treatment for such
patients is absolutely essential, and I am optimistic that we can get some
success in that area and offer some symptomatic relief to those individuals
where the drugs don’t work whatsoever,” Alan Palmer, director of Cerestim, told
International Business Times.
The company is developing a headset that can be
used by patients in their homes and remotely monitored by physicians, who will
be able to control how often the device is used. Cerestim also says that thanks
to the headset's ability to read a patient's brain waves, it will be able to
adapt treatment to each individual user — something current
electrical treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) simply cannot do.
Depression is a medical condition with a
possible biological basis. Although the exact causes are still
being identified, companies developing headsets like Cerestim believe the
problem lies in the miscommunication between certain areas in the brain due to
misfiring cells or neurons.
Cerestim's headset aims to read a patient's
brain waves to identify where this "dysfunctional communication"
is happening and, using specially designed electrodes tailored for each
individual, repeatedly deliver small alternating electric
currents to a particular area of the brain to reset the firing mechanism.
The pervasive image of using
electrical currents to alter brain function is of machines like this ECT
machine from the St. Audry's Hospital asylum in Suffolk, England, which closed
in 1993, but new companies are looking to change that view.
One of the challenges facing Cerestim and other
companies developing products in this field is having to overcome the
negative connotations of ECT. “Applying an electric current to your head is
scary,” Palmer admits.
But whereas the smallest current an ECT
machine can apply is 750 milliamps, Cerestim's headset will use an
alternating current of just 2 milliamps. Additionally, where ECT purposely
attempts to bring on convulsions, Cerestim’s solution will be
painless. "It takes time for such technologies to be accepted, but I
think the process has started,” Palmer said.
Cerestim, which is based in the U.K., was
founded in 2014 by Dr. Nir Grossman, who is researching transcranial electrical
stimulation at MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The company says that proof of concept has been demonstrated, and it is close
to signing a clinical research organization to put its technology into a
clinical trial of patients with depression to establish efficacy.
Alzheimer’s Treatment
While the application of this technology to
treat depression is likely to be the initial focus of testing, the method
behind it can also be applied to a range of other disorders, including
insomnia, migraines and potentially even Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists know the physiological progression
of Alzheimer's and that it follows a distinct pathway within the
brain, beginning in the entorhinal cortex. “You could envisage the stimulation
of the entorhinal cortex region of people with very early forms of
Alzheimer’s,” Palmer said. “You could see some benefit in applying an
electrical stimulation there to get the neurons in that vulnerable area more
active.”
There are already a couple of companies
with devices on the market that offer similar benefits to transcranial
brain stimulation, using a different technique. This technology, called
transcranial magnetic stimulation, also uses a tiny electrical current to alter
patients' brain waves, but it requires a large magnet, necessitating a
visit to a clinic for treatment, and each machine can cost in excess of
$100,000.
Cerestim’s headset, on the other hand, will cost
around $50, according to Palmer, when it comes to market in three to five
years, pending regulatory approvals. And it will be fully portable — allowing
patients to be treated in their own homes.
Relaxation Therapy
That said, this is still very much a medical
device and will be controlled by doctors rather than the patients themselves.
However, there is another set of companies that are looking to develop
consumer-focused headsets that also take advantage of advancements in the
ability to read brain waves and brain functions.
The Melomind headset from MyBrain
Technologies aims to teach people to relax using an accompanying smartphone
app.
Dr. Rohan Attal and Dr. Thibaud
Dumas co-founded MyBrain Technologies after meeting at the Brain
and Spine Institute in Paris, one of the most renowned centers for neuroscience
research in the world. The pair’s first product is called Melomind, a
headset that works in collaboration with an app on a smartphone to read
brain waves and craft unique “audio journeys” to help the user learn
to relax.
The company’s goal, according to Attal, is to
“take the latest discoveries in neuroscience from the laboratories to the
global market and provide a solution to provide better health and well-being.”
Attal and Dumas demonstrated their app on
the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last
week, seeking to set themselves apart from the flood of wearable and
health-focused technology, which was one of the big trends of the show — but
MyBrain is not interested in becoming the Fitbit for your brain.
“We didn’t want just a quantified-self product;
we wanted something that can help people in a proactive way, improve their own
brain function through the concept of brain training,” Dumas told
IBT. Helping people relax and addressing stress may not sound like
treating depression, but as Attal points out, a lot of physical disorders
such as insomnia and migraines are related to stress.
http://health.einnews.com/article/306154064/3ZmqSfnjrnhL3aME
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