Simon Fraser University researchers developing a more accessible way to monitor brain health hope that a vital-sign brain test will eventually be as routine during a doctor’s checkup as taking a patient’s blood pressure.
The research is being led by SFU Prof. Ryan D’Arcy with partners from the Mayo Clinic, Sheba Medical Centre in Israel and local high-tech company HealthTech Connex Inc.
In a recent article published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, the team introduces what it calls the world’s first advancement in physiology-based brain vital signs. Their discovery, an SFU release stated, makes it possible to translate complex brainwaves into objective, practical and deployable brain vital signs, using brainwave technologies that have existed for nearly a century.
“The brain vital-sign framework described in Frontiers in Neuroscience represents the first step toward an easy way to monitor brain health,” said D’Arcy in the release. “Potential applications are in concussion, brain injury, stroke, dementia and other devastating brain diseases and disorders.”
Scientists in D’Arcy’s NeuroTech Lab, based in Surrey Memorial Hospital, have now developed a simple way to measure brain health over time by using non-invasive electrodes to track the brain’s electrical activity for key brain functions — in other words, the brain’s vital signs, the release said.
Traditionally, brain function has been assessed only after trauma or disease has occurred and has relied heavily on subjective, behaviour-based assessments.
