Neurocognitive ability EEG measurement method and system: Key Neurotech Patent #8

Today we are shar­ing a 2002 patent assigned to Sam Tech­nol­o­gy, Inc.

U.S. Patent No. 6,434,419: Neu­rocog­ni­tive abil­i­ty EEG mea­sure­ment method and system

• Assignee(s): Sam Tech­nol­o­gy, Inc.
• Inventor(s): Alan S. Gevins, Michael E. Smith
• Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: EEG
• Issue Date: August 13, 2002

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘419 patent describes sys­tems with the objec­tive of mea­sur­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty through EEG sig­nal detec­tion and analy­sis, such that capa­bil­i­ties can be objec­tive­ly mea­sured in a man­ner that does not suf­fer from draw­backs asso­ci­at­ed with oth­er cog­ni­tive assess­ment test­ing approach­es that may present prej­u­di­cial assess­ments due to cul­tur­al bias­es and spe­cif­ic knowl­edge areas asso­ci­at­ed with the test sub­ject. More­over, the ‘419 patent recites an objec­tive of mea­sur­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty as it relates to exter­nal fac­tors that may affect cog­ni­tive per­for­mance for bet­ter or worse, for exam­ple with cog­ni­tive per­for­mance after sleep depri­va­tion. The sig­nif­i­cant EEG research data col­lect­ed on the impact of cog­ni­tive per­for­mance under var­i­ous men­tal states, such as drunk­en­ness shown in the illus­tra­tive image above, and inde­pen­dent claim scope cov­er­ing the inven­tive con­cept relat­ing to objec­tive cog­ni­tive test­ing, are amongst the fac­tors mak­ing the ‘419 patent a key non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent.

Abstract:

An effi­cient, objec­tive test­ing method and sys­tem for eval­u­at­ing men­tal acu­ity and changes in men­tal acu­ity is described. The method and sys­tem are based on mea­sur­ing an indi­vid­u­al’s behav­ioral respons­es and brain func­tion dur­ing a brief test of work­ing mem­o­ry and pas­sive con­trol con­di­tion. The method and sys­tem is designed to assess an indi­vid­u­al’s over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty (“gen­er­al intel­li­gence”), and whether that over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed by a vari­ety of fac­tors such as pro­gres­sive dis­ease process­es, med­ica­tion, stress, fatigue or train­ing. The method and sys­tem can be used to deter­mine whether drugs being eval­u­at­ed to treat dis­eases or con­di­tions affect­ing high­er cog­ni­tive brain func­tion have a sig­nif­i­cant pos­i­tive effect on delay­ing or improv­ing the symp­toms of such a dis­ease or con­di­tion, espe­cial­ly dur­ing clin­i­cal tri­als for drug approval and sub­se­quent mar­ket­ing. The method and sys­tem may also be employed as part of the suc­cess­ful diag­no­sis or ongo­ing treat­ment of neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases or con­di­tions that direct­ly or indi­rect­ly affect human neu­rocog­ni­tive per­for­mance. The method and sys­tem may also be used to deter­mine tran­si­to­ry changes in over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty due to emo­tion­al stress or fatigue, and more long last­ing changes in over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty fol­low­ing train­ing and edu­ca­tion­al programs.

Illus­tra­tive Claim 1. The method of mea­sur­ing a sub­jec­t’s work­ing mem­o­ry, sub­stan­tial­ly free of bias from cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence, to deter­mine the sub­jec­t’s over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty (“gen­er­al intel­li­gence”), includ­ing the steps of:

• (a) pre­sent­ing an atten­tion-demand­ing task to the sub­ject, which engages the sub­jec­t’s work­ing mem­o­ry process­es, and, simultaneously;
• (b) mea­sur­ing the sub­jec­t’s behav­ioral respons­es to the task and neu­ro­elec­tric activ­i­ty at the sub­jec­t’s scalp using a set of elec­troen­cephalo­graph (EEG) elec­trodes and ampli­fi­er and analog/digital(A/D) con­vert­ers to pro­vide a set of dig­i­tal data rep­re­sent­ing the sub­jec­t’s behav­ioral respons­es and neu­ro­elec­tric activ­i­ty in response to the task;
• © in a com­put­er sys­tem, com­par­ing the sub­jec­t’s dig­i­tal data rep­re­sent­ing behav­ioral respons­es and neu­ro­elec­tric activ­i­ty in response to the task to a set of dig­i­tal data rep­re­sent­ing the behav­ioral respons­es and EEG derived neu­ro­elec­tric activ­i­ty respons­es of a nor­mal group to the same task; and
• (d) dis­play­ing the sub­jec­t’s over­all cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty score or scores based upon the com­par­i­son of © with the nor­mal group.

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