Posted: Updated: Sat, 11/19/22 02:53 PM
A team of researchers is developing a “dual-modal brain sensing device” that could rapidly and efficiently detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD), according to a new report.
San Francisco: A team of researchers is developing a “dual-modal brain sensing device” that could rapidly and efficiently detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD), according to a new report.
According to UTA (University of Texas at Arlington), bioengineering professor Hanli Liu will serve as the principal investigator of the project “Digital Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease and Compact Bimodal Brain Sensing”.
“What we’ve done in this project is to develop a fast, comfortable way to measure metabolic, hemodynamic and electrophysiological (MHE) activity in the human brain,” she said.
“The proposed development allows us to identify digital neurophysiological biomarkers. After we cross-validate them, they can be used to accurately detect Alzheimer’s in each patient as well as to screen for the early stages of AD,” she added road.
According to the report, the device records data from near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as well as dry/wireless electroencephalography (EEG).
In spectroscopy, near-infrared light is absorbed and emitted by the human cortex, while in electroencephalography, electrical activity in the brain reflects dynamic neural activity.
This multifunctional device will be able to measure various brain health parameters such as brain metabolism, cerebral blood volume, brain oxygenation, brain oscillatory power and functional connectivity, and neurovascular coupling, the report added.
The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 50 million people worldwide, including more than 6 million Americans, have Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.
AD is responsible for more deaths from all forms of dementia than breast and prostate cancer combined. AD and other types of dementia cost $355 billion in 2021, a figure expected to rise to more than $1 trillion by 2050, the report said.
