Make it simple - keystones for automated empowered EEG based brain network analysis

Offentlig prosjektsammendrag

Today, the diagnosis of dementia relies exclusively on the neuropsychological identification of severe, established cognitive symptoms. Consequently, in Norway and Europe, the time between dementia symptom onset to consultation takes years, and the time between registered subjective and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by the patients to final professional dementia diagnosis is estimated to be 8-12 years. These facts emphasise the urgent need for accessible and predictive biomarkers of high accuracy. Importantly, half of all dementia cases worldwide may be attributable to few and modifiable risk factors. However, due to the current clinical situation of dementia risk evaluation, the window of opportunity to counter dementia progression is missed for many patients. BrainSymph is a medical technology SME rooted in clinical neuroscience and neurology. Our vision is to develop accessible and high-accuracy screening procedures for dementia risk. As a partner of the EU-funded AI-Mind project, dedicated to combining biomarkers using AI technology for early dementia risk, BrainSymph is well positioned to achieve its goals. BrainSymph aims to translate and commercialise this innovative research for clinical use by automating significant steps of sophisticated brain network analyses. Our approach is based on electroencephalography (EEG), a classic neurophysiological tool for diagnosing brain dysfunction. Knowing that the integrity of functional brain networks is tightly linked with cognitive functioning, BrainSymph is committed to bringing this biomarker to clinicians and patients. To achieve this, BrainSymph has set three objectives for the current project: 1) automatic construction of personalised source-EEG models based on 3D scans, 2) validation of our technology in EEG with clinically feasible sparse electrode arrays, and 3) develop a personalised insight report for effective and clear results communication to clinicians and patients.