Next: Wearable neurotechnologies to improve sleep and circadian rhythm regulation

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sleep_brainUnder Con­tract with US Army Research Office, Brain State Tech­nolo­gies Makes Wear­able Devices for Sleep Enhance­ment (Sleep Review):

“Brain State Tech­nolo­gies LLC has pro­duced pro­to­types of a wear­able neu­rotech­nol­o­gy device designed to sup­port improved sleep and cir­ca­di­an rhythm reg­u­la­tion. The pro­to­types were pro­duced under a com­pet­i­tive­ly award­ed con­tract from the Unit­ed States Army Research Office that also includ­ed researchers at Wake For­est School of Med­i­cine in Win­ston-Salem, North Car­oli­na, and sleep med­i­cine con­sul­tants from the Har­vard Med­ical School and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia School of Medicine…

The com­pa­ny has filed a pro­vi­sion­al patent appli­ca­tion with the US Patent Office for inno­va­tions to con­fig­ure its exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy into a wear­able form-fac­tor with advanced brain mon­i­tor­ing and soft­ware analy­sis functionality…

The con­tract to pro­duce wear­able tech­nol­o­gy for sleep and cir­ca­di­an rhythm reg­u­la­tion was award­ed to Brain State under the US Small Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer (SBIR/STTR) Pro­gram. The SBIR/STTR Pro­gram was cre­at­ed by Con­gress in 1977 to lever­age the role of small busi­ness­es in cre­at­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies. Accord­ing to the SBIR/STTR Pro­gram web­site, to date the awards have result­ed in 70,000 issued patents, close to 700 pub­lic com­pa­nies, and approx­i­mate­ly $41 bil­lion in ven­ture cap­i­tal funding.”

Award: Tech­nol­o­gy to Reg­u­late Cir­ca­di­an Rhythm for Health and Per­for­mance (STTR)

  • Abstract: We pro­pose a wear­able, dual-use neu­rotech­nol­o­gy device. The Per­son­al Brain­wave Head­band, dri­ven by tablet or smart­phone, is designed for non­in­va­sive closed-loop acoustic stim­u­la­tion, to per­mit improved cir­ca­di­an reg­u­la­tion. It will mea­sure brain elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty from scalp over­ly­ing four key sec­tors of cor­tex, per­form high-res­o­lu­tion spec­tral analy­sis of the sig­nals, and use soft­ware algo­rithms to trans­late dom­i­nant brain fre­quen­cies into audi­ble tones of chang­ing pitch and tim­ing. Res­o­nance between brain­waves and audi­ble tones facil­i­tates self-opti­miza­tion, man­i­fest­ing as greater left-right hemi­spher­ic sym­me­try and more opti­mized ratios of ener­gy between low and high fre­quen­cies of brain elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty. The net result of brain self-opti­miza­tion will be more rest­ful sleep. Pre­lim­i­nary data demon­strate effi­ca­cy of the approach when using exter­nal ampli­fiers and a lap­top com­put­er con­fig­u­ra­tion, to sup­port symp­tom reduc­tion in insom­nia, PTSD, TBI, and oth­er con­di­tions. The device will also have func­tion­al­i­ty for reg­u­lar use in a mon­i­tor-only mode to enable iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of brain states asso­ci­at­ed with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (BSAV“s). BSAV“s (to be stud­ied in Phase II) are those brain activ­i­ty pat­terns (com­bi­na­tions of asym­me­try and sub­op­ti­mal ratios of ener­gy between low and high fre­quen­cies) that are asso­ci­at­ed with a high­er like­li­hood of expe­ri­enc­ing emo­tion­al dis­tur­bance, or demon­strat­ing com­pro­mised per­for­mance or mal­adap­tive behavior.

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