Electroencephalography

INmune Bio Reports Significant EEG Improvement in Alzheimer’s Patients Treated with XPro™

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Boca Raton, Florida, March 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --  INmune Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ: INMB) (the “Company”), a clinical-stage immunology company targeting microglial activation and neuroinflammation as a cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) reports significant improvements in electroencephalography (EEG), a biomarker of brain function, in patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s Disease treated with XPro™ for four weeks.

Key Points: 
  • Boca Raton, Florida, March 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- INmune Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ: INMB) (the “Company”), a clinical-stage immunology company targeting microglial activation and neuroinflammation as a cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) reports significant improvements in electroencephalography (EEG), a biomarker of brain function, in patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s Disease treated with XPro™ for four weeks.
  • Patients who received weekly XPro™ treatment for four weeks had a statistically significant increase in Alpha wave frequency and power (p
  • Reduced Alpha power is linked with cognitive decline and the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease.
  • EEG's capability to assess brain function makes these findings particularly noteworthy for INmune Bio’s novel treatment strategy.

The brain is the most complicated object in the universe. This is the story of scientists’ quest to decode it – and read people’s minds

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, February 7, 2024

This is the closest science has yet come to reading someone’s mind.

Key Points: 
  • This is the closest science has yet come to reading someone’s mind.
  • As Alexander Huth, the neuroscientist who co-led the research, told the New York Times:
    This isn’t just a language stimulus.
  • In the longer term, this could lead to wider public applications such as fitbit-style health monitors for the brain and brain-controlled smartphones.
  • On January 29, Elon Musk announced that his Neuralink tech startup had implanted a chip in a human brain for the first time.

Humanity’s greatest mapping challenge

  • By fully mapping the structure and function of a healthy human brain, we can determine with great precision what goes awry in diseases of the brain and mind.
  • Similar initiatives were launched in Europe in 2013 (the Human Brain Project) and China in 2016 (the China Brain Project).
  • This daunting endeavour may still take generations to complete – but the scientific ambition of mapping and reading people’s brains dates back more than two centuries.
  • With the world having been circumnavigated many times over, Antarctica discovered and much of the planet charted, humanity was ready for a new (and even more complicated) mapping challenge – the human brain.
  • In the 1860s, “locationist” views of how the brain worked made a comeback – though the scientists leading this research were keen to distinguish their theories from phrenology.
  • French anatomist Paul Broca discovered a region of the left hemisphere responsible for producing speech – thanks in part to his patient, Louis Victor Leborgne, who at age 30 lost the ability to say anything other than the syllable “tan”.
  • This approach depends on the findings of American physiologist John Fulton almost a century ago.
  • This stronger pulse of activity was not replicated by other sensory inputs, for example when smelling tobacco or vanilla.

The first clinical trial

  • The ultimate goal is wireless, non-invasive devices that help patients communicate and move with precision in the real world.
  • In 2004, BrainGate began the first clinical trial using BCIs to enable patients with impaired motor systems (including spinal cord injuries, brainstem infarctions, locked-in syndrome and muscular dystrophy) control a computer cursor with their thoughts.
  • The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.
  • Patient MN, a quadriplegic since being stabbed in the neck in 2001, was the trial’s first patient.
  • In addition, brain activity was linked to the patient’s prosthetic hand and robotic arm, enabling rudimentary actions including grasping and transporting an object.
  • Also in 2017, BrainGate clinical trials reported the first evidence that BCIs could be used to help patients regain movement of their own limbs by bypassing the damaged portion of the spinal cord.

A new era of ‘mind reading’ technology

  • But having been primarily envisaged as a tool for diagnostics and monitoring, it is now also a core element of the latest neural communication and prosthetic devices.
  • Despite being behaviourally non-responsive and minimally conscious, these patients were able to answer yes-or-no questions just by using their minds.
  • Now, a decade on, the HuthLab research at the University of Texas constitutes a paradigmatic shift in the evolution of communication-enabling neuroimaging systems.
  • Whereas the brain’s capacity to produce motor intentions is shared across species, the ability to produce and perceive language is uniquely human.
  • The disadvantage of fMRI is that it can only take slow measurements of brain signals (typically, one brain volume every two or three seconds).
  • They demonstrated that the system could be used not only to decode semantic content entertained through auditive perception, but also through visual perception.
  • Importantly, they also explicitly addressed the potential threat to a person’s mental privacy posed by this kind of technology.
  • We take very seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and have worked to avoid that.

The ethical implications are immense

  • Losing the ability to communicate is a deep cut to one’s sense of self.
  • The ethical implications of providing access to such data to scientific and corporate entities are potentially immense.
  • For example, Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that affects movement, is co-morbid with dementia, which affects the ability to reason and think clearly.
  • In line with this approach, Chile was the first country that adopted legislation to address the risks inherent to neurotechnology.
  • One of the cornerstones of ethical research is the principle of informed consent.
  • The growing availability of neurotechnology in a commercial context that is generally subject to far less regulation only amplifies these ethical and legal concerns.
  • We are at an early stage of technological development and as we begin to uncover the great potential of BCI, both for therapeutic applications and beyond, the need to consider these ethical questions and their implications for legal action becomes more pressing.

Decoding our neuro future

  • By the middle of 2021, the total investment in neurotechnology companies amounted to just over US$33 billion (around £26 million).
  • The implant is said to include 1,024 electrodes, yet is only slightly larger than the diameter of a red blood cell.
  • The Kernel Flow, for example, is a commercially available, wearable headset that uses fNRIS technology to monitor brain activity.
  • The dawn of a new era of brain-computer interfaces should be treated with great care and great respect – in acknowledgement of its immense potential to both help, and harm, our future generations.


For you: more from our Insights series:
Unlocking new clues to how dementia and Alzheimer’s work in the brain – Uncharted Brain podcast series

Freedom of thought is being threatened by states, big tech and even ourselves. Here’s what we can do to protect it

OCD is so much more than handwashing or tidying. As a historian with the disorder, here’s what I’ve learned

Noise in the brain enables us to make extraordinary leaps of imagination. It could transform the power of computers too

To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. Subscribe to our newsletter.
Stephanie Sheir received funding from the EPSRC (grant number EP/V026518/1). Timo Istace receives funding from Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen. Nicholas J. Kelley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Alto Neuroscience Announces Data from Presentations at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, December 7, 2023

Alto Neuroscience, Inc. today announced details from three presentations on clinical development programs presented at the 62nd annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) that took place in Tampa, Florida, from December 3-6, 2023.

Key Points: 
  • Alto Neuroscience, Inc. today announced details from three presentations on clinical development programs presented at the 62nd annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) that took place in Tampa, Florida, from December 3-6, 2023.
  • Alto’s data demonstrate advancements in biomarker identification for precision psychiatry and the potential to improve upon the trial-and-error approach to mental health treatment.
  • The company’s AI-enabled Precision Psychiatry Platform™ is designed to predict clinical response and match each patient to the right Alto product candidate through identifying, and prospectively replicating, brain biomarkers by analyzing data generated from EEG activity, neurocognitive task performance, wearable devices, and other measures.
  • Additionally, Alto is advancing ALTO-101 into a Phase 2 proof of concept study in patients with cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia, with topline data expected in 2025.

AI-generated faces look just like real ones – but evidence shows your brain can tell the difference

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Synthetic faces now appear as real as genuine ones – if not more so.

Key Points: 
  • Synthetic faces now appear as real as genuine ones – if not more so.
  • One generates new, plausible images (faces, in this case), while the other tries to discriminate real images from fake ones.
  • Researchers have found that people shown synthetic faces mixed in with real ones struggle to tell the difference.
  • Another study found that synthetic faces were rated as more real than photographs of actual faces.

Unconscious awareness in the brain

  • In another recent study, researchers in Australia delved deeper into our ability to tell the difference between real and synthetic faces.
  • In their first experiment, online participants failed to distinguish between the two types of faces, and again perceived the synthetic faces as more real than the real ones.
  • The results from the EEG test showed that brain activity differed when people were looking at real versus synthetic faces.
  • So one explanation might be that synthetic faces were perceived as subtly different to real faces in terms of the distances between features like the eyes, nose, and mouth.
  • Although it may be surprising to think that our brains have access to information that is outside of our conscious awareness, there are many examples of this in psychology.
  • In the array of faces at the top of the article, the real and synthetic faces are as follows (from left to right): R S S R S R S R R S R R R S R R R S


Robin Kramer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Patient Engagement Solutions Market size to grow by USD 26.37 billion from 2022 to 2027, Advanced benefits of patient engagement solutions notably drive the - Technavio

Retrieved on: 
Sunday, November 5, 2023

Advanced benefits of patient engagement solutions notably drive the patient engagement solution market growth.

Key Points: 
  • Advanced benefits of patient engagement solutions notably drive the patient engagement solution market growth.
  • The patient engagement solutions market is fragmented; the vendors are competing with competitors and are trying to get a greater market share.
  • Buy The Report
    Stringent regulations on patient engagement solutions are a major challenge hindering the growth of the market during the forecast period.
  • The increasing adoption of mobile technology for patient engagement is an emerging market trend that is influencing the growth of the market.

WiMi Developed Brain-Computer Interface-Based Assembly and Manipulation using Hand-Guiding

Retrieved on: 
Monday, October 30, 2023

This brain-computer interface-based assembly and hand-guided control technology from WiMi focuses on collaborative assembly tasks.

Key Points: 
  • This brain-computer interface-based assembly and hand-guided control technology from WiMi focuses on collaborative assembly tasks.
  • Brain-computer interface technology plays a key role in WiMi's brain-computer interface-based assembly and manipulation using hand-guiding technology.
  • WiMi's brain-computer interface-based assembly and manipulation using hand-guiding technology divides the collaborative process into an independent phase and a support phase.
  • WiMi's brain-computer interface-based assembly and manipulation using hand-guiding technology provides unprecedented opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses.

Airlangga University Professor develops New Epilepsy Treatment

Retrieved on: 
Monday, October 30, 2023

Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Oct 30, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - A medical professor at Airlangga University, Prastiya Indra Gunawan, has developed a new epilepsy treatment method that involves administering midazolam intramuscularly and intranasally.

Key Points: 
  • Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Oct 30, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - A medical professor at Airlangga University, Prastiya Indra Gunawan, has developed a new epilepsy treatment method that involves administering midazolam intramuscularly and intranasally.
  • Airlangga University professor Prastiya Indra Gunawan has devised a new treatment method that involves providing midazolam intramuscularly and intranasally to epilepsy patients.
  • This is different from rectal diazepam, which takes 180 seconds," Professor Gunawan, a pediatrician from Airlangga University, said.
  • With the establishment of the epilepsy center, Gunawan said he hopes that people with epilepsy will not only receive healthcare, but also see improvements in their social life.

WiMi Developed a Hybrid Bio-Signal-Based Brain-Computer Interface

Retrieved on: 
Monday, October 23, 2023

BEIJING, Oct. 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc. (NASDAQ: WIMI) ("WiMi" or the "Company"), a leading global Hologram Augmented Reality ("AR") Technology provider, today announced that WiMi has developed a hybrid bios-signal-based brain-computer interface (HBS-BCI) that is rapidly gaining prominence.

Key Points: 
  • BEIJING, Oct. 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc. (NASDAQ: WIMI) ("WiMi" or the "Company"), a leading global Hologram Augmented Reality ("AR") Technology provider, today announced that WiMi has developed a hybrid bios-signal-based brain-computer interface (HBS-BCI) that is rapidly gaining prominence.
  • As a company focused on innovation and technology, WiMi is committed to providing advanced solutions that improve the way people interact with technology.
  • Paradigm design and task setup determine the specific activities or tasks to be accomplished by the user in the brain-computer interface task.
  • In addition to the basic application of HBS-BCI technology, WiMi will further research and develop HBS-BCI to promote its real-time application in daily life scenarios.

Cognition Therapeutics Presents New Data at CTAD Conference from Advancing Pipeline Across Multiple CNS Indications

Retrieved on: 
Monday, October 16, 2023

PURCHASE, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cognition Therapeutics, Inc., (Nasdaq: CGTX), (the “Company” or “Cognition”) announced upcoming presentations from studies of CT1812, the Company's lead candidate for the treatment of adults with early, mild and moderate Alzheimer’s disease at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference being held October 24-27, 2023 virtually and in person in Boston, MA.

Key Points: 
  • Cognition scientists and collaborators will present the complete electroencephalography (EEG) findings and proteomic analyses from the SEQUEL study .
  • Prior topline results showed that CT1812 had a beneficial impact on synapse function as measured by a positive change in brain waves patterns observed using quantitative EEG.
  • Specifically, participants treated with CT1812 exhibited fewer slow “theta” waves, which are associated with cognitive impairment, and proportionally more “alpha” waves compared to placebo-treated participants.
  • CT1812 also improved connectivity, as assessed by alpha AECc, which may indicate improved communication between different parts of the brain.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Builds AI Supercomputer for CRIANN to Accelerate Scientific Research and Innovation

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The new AI supercomputer is part of ongoing efforts to advance France’s national AI strategy and was co-funded by the Normandy Region, the French State, and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Key Points: 
  • The new AI supercomputer is part of ongoing efforts to advance France’s national AI strategy and was co-funded by the Normandy Region, the French State, and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
  • Austral will help train robust AI models and run simulations and data analysis to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation in climate modeling, biotechnology, healthcare, and materials science, among other areas.
  • “We are proud to continue partnering with France’s national and regional centers to accelerate its AI missions by building powerful solutions using our supercomputers and AI software.
  • Accelerate innovation for autonomous driving by understanding obstacle avoidance across different environments, such as railways or adverse weather conditions.