A couple months ago, Medgadget reviewed RightEye’s EyeQ vision tests and training tools in addition to speaking with Co-Founder and CSO Dr. Melissa Hunfalvay. As a platform to help providers assess eyesight, brain and reading disorders, and performance issues, RightEye captures much of its data using state-of-the-art eye tracking technol (Read more...)
Tag: Neurology
Ohio State Studying Medical Aspects of Video Games in New Esports Program
At Ohio State University there’s a new program to study various aspects of esports (competitive playing of video games), including medically related issues such as fatigue, long-term problems for players, and how the brain and muscles work together to achieve incredible feats of coordination. The Sports Medicine Movement Analysis and Performa (Read more...)
Vagus Nerve Stimulator Doubles Movement Recovery in Stroke Patients
Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have developed and helped to commercialize a vagus nerve stimulator therapy, which significantly enhanced movement recovery in stroke patients undergoing rehab in a recent study. The device, called the Vivistim, is currently being tested and developed by a UT Dallas spinoff company called MicroTransp (Read more...)
Vuzix Smart Glasses and Genzõ App Provide Live Life Experiences for Low-Mobility Patients
Vuzix, a New York-based supplier of smart glasses and augmented reality solutions, has partnered with 1Minuut Innovation, a Dutch healthcare innovation company, to provide a real-time life experience solution for low-mobility patients. The system consists of the Vuzix M300 smart glasses and the 1Minuut Genzõ app, and it allows patients who a (Read more...)
Spinal Cord Epidural Stimulation Lets Paralyzed Walk Again
While paralysis is common following a serious spinal injury, it seems that many patients may be treated with a new therapy that has already proven to restore walking and standing in a few study volunteers. Researchers at University of Louisville in Kentucky, reporting in New England Journal of Medicine, combined spinal cord epidural stimulatio (Read more...)
Body Sensors and Brain Simulator to Estimate Effects of Head Injuries
Injuries to the brain are hard to assess, particularly just after a traumatic event. Various imaging techniques can help to assess how the brain has been impacted, but they are still not very good in many cases, leaving physicians with not enough data to form confident diagnoses. Researchers at Penn State are working on a […]
Face and Voice Recognition Identifies Dementia Sufferers
Dementia can creep on slowly and develop without much notice in many patients. Monitoring these changes is not easy, typically requiring professional experts to interpret faint symptoms gauged through standard questionnaires. Patients undergoing such testing tend to get used to it and end up improving their test taking ability, skewing the results. (Read more...)
Paladin Carotid PTA Balloon with Embolic Protection Filter Cleared by FDA
Contego Medical, out of Raleigh, North Carolina, won FDA clearance for its Paladin carotid PTA (Percutaneous Transluminal Angioplasty) balloon catheter. The device, used to open up narrow arteries and to post-dilation of self-expanding stents, has a built-in embolic protection filter that traps any debris that may become dislodged and forced to flo (Read more...)
Microscopic Implantable Sensors Measure Dopamine in Brain
Dopamine is a neural signaling molecule seemingly involved in nearly every aspect of the brain’s activity. Yet, there hasn’t been a practical way to monitor the long term levels of dopamine in lab animals, let alone in humans. The main problem is that sensors developed so far degrade in the brain within a matter of […]
dayzz, An Evidence-Based, Personalized Sleep Training App for Employers, Interview with CEO Amir Inditzky
In addition to fatigue, high blood pressure, and weight gain experienced by individuals with chronically poor sleep, productivity and performance in the workplace are also known to suffer. Sleep deprivation, for example, can cost employers up to six lost working days and $2,762 in financial impact annually per employee. Today, the American Academy (Read more...)
Looking Deep Into Living Brain Using Photon Counter on Laser Scanning Microscope
New technology has been developed at Tel Aviv University in Israel that significantly improves 2D and 3D imaging of neuronal activity in the brains of living animals. The technology should help make new findings possible about the workings of the brain and how neurological diseases operate. PySight, as the technology is called, uses open-source sof (Read more...)
New Device Vibrates Skull to Diagnose Cause of Dizziness
Dizziness can be caused by a different underlying health problems, but identifying which is the culprit is not trivial. One technique is called a VEMP test (Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials), which requires the patient to listen to exceedingly loud popping sounds. These sounds, via a natural reflex, trigger the muscles in the eyes and nec (Read more...)
Focused Ultrasound and Intranasal Drug Delivery for Brain Cancer Therapy
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a new method to bypass the blood-brain barrier and deliver drugs to the brain, which could be particularly useful in difficult-to-treat brain tumors. The technique involves administering drugs through an intranasal spray, meaning that the drug can travel directly into the brain a (Read more...)
iPrognosis Looking at People’s Behaviors to Find Signs of Parkinson’s
Our smartphones are powerful sensors and information processors that have the potential to detect early signs of some diseases. Parkinson’s, for example, is a disease that can have a slow onset with few symptoms early on. These symptoms, moreover, may be unnoticeable to the person and those around them, but possibly detectable by the phone. [ (Read more...)
Seizure Control Device Delivers Drugs Inside Brain
A collaboration between researchers at University of Cambridge in the UK and École Nationale Supérieure des Mines and INSERM in France has developed a device that can sense electrical brain activity and deliver a pre-loaded drug dose in response. It has already been tried on mice undergoing seizures, releasing a native brain chemical (Read more...)
Two New Penumbra Catheters to Suck Out Stroke Causing Clots
Penumbra, a company famous for its suction-based stroke clot removal devices, is releasing what it says is its “most advanced technology,” the Penumbra JET 7 and Penumbra JET D Reperfusion Catheters. The devices work with the company’s Penumbra ENGINE system provides the vacuum aspiration that’s necessary to pull a thro (Read more...)
RightEye Vision Tests for Eyes and Brain: Interview with Co-Founder and CSO Dr. Melissa Hunfalvay
Medgadget recently demoed RightEye’s vision tests with Dr. Jennifer Kungle, a provider at The Center for Vision Development, and worked with the beta version of the company’s at-home EyeQ Trainer. It was a great experience that this editor would recommend for patients going through vision rehabilitation or individuals seeking a more viv (Read more...)
Draper’s Wireless Brain Implant to Make New Therapies Possible
Draper, an engineering firm in Cambridge, MA, has developed a tiny wireless neuromodulation device that may be small enough to implant into the interior of the cranium right against the brain. Current brain stimulators are placed, like pacemakers, under the skin in the chest, with electric leads reaching out through the vasculature into the brain. (Read more...)
Training Athletes’ Dynamic Vision with System Originally Designed to Detect Concussions
SyncThink is a company known for making eye tracking devices that can help to diagnose brain concussions. Their FDA-cleared EYE-SYNC technology is already being used by a number of university sports programs, as well as by major hospitals. Now the same technology is being adapted to help athletes in demanding sports to improve their dynamic [&helli (Read more...)
Walking Simulator Measures People’s Gait Efficiency
One’s walking style can reveal a good deal of what’s going on inside our bodies. We naturally take on a gait and stride that are the most efficient and cause us least pain, so being able to analyze a walking style may help with diagnoses, rehab, and monitoring of a variety of conditions. To that […]