Start-Up Gets Army Brain Injury Field Diagnostics Contract

(Army.mil)

BrainScope Company Inc. in Bethesda, Maryland received a U.S. Army contract to develop a medical device to diagnose traumatic brain injuries in the field using smartphone-enabled technology. The $2.67 million contract with the four year-old company runs for two years.

The award funds development of a device to help in the triage of patients in the field suspected of having traumatic brain injuries, including concussions. The device is expected to connect BrainScope’s diagnostics technology with smartphones.

The company’s technology harnesses the electronic brain signatures provided by traditional electroencephalograms (EEGs), but captures these signals with a small, disposable frontal electrode headset. The system then uses algorithms to quantify and characterize the patient’s brain activity. The device is designed to be used at the point of care for early diagnosis of suspected brain injury, which can be confirmed later with EEGs and CT scans.

A clinical trial reported in a 2010 issue of the journal Brain Injury tested BrainScope’s technology with 105 head injury patients in two different hospitals. The tests showed that BrainScope’s system could distinguish between patients with mild head injury symptoms, who subsequently reported positive or negative CT scans, and non-injured subjects. A positive CT scan indicates a head injury severe enough to warrant more extensive evaluation and treatment.

Brainscope was founded in 2008 to develop a portable brain-injury diagnostic device based on research conducted at NYU and Yale universities. In addition to military applications, the technology is expected to used in athletic and other civilian head injury cases.

Read more:

• Non-Invasive Technique Developed to Measure Brain Pressure
• Traumatic Brain Injury Cases Likely Under-Reported
• Stanford Using Sensor-Packed Mouthpiece to Study Concussions
• Grant Awarded for Study of Blood Test to Spot Concussions
• Mayo Clinic, GE to Research Brain-Scan MRI Technology

Hat tip: MedCity News

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