Remote Neurosensing Market Sees Flurry of Activity

by James Cavuoto, editor

The market for neurosensing and brain analysis systems with integrated communication capabilities is undergoing expansion, based on recent market activity. Remote sensing devices offer clinicians the opportunity to help diagnose neurological conditions such as stroke or brain injury.

One of the newest entrants in the remote neurosensing market is a Chesterfield, MO company called BrainScope, which raised a round of venture funding late last year from investors Revolution LLC, Alafi Capital, and ZG Ventures. Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and founder of Revolution, increased his investment in BrainScope and joined its board.

The company’s NT-1000 device is a battery-operated, mobile system designed to provide immediate, actionable information to the medical professional. The system is in clinical data collection sites in emergency departments with eight leading hospitals. These data collection trials are scheduled to be significantly expanded in 2009.

The BrainScope NT-1000 collects both spontaneous and evoked brain electrical activity data through sensors attached to a disposable headset containing electrodes placed on the forehead. The data is then analyzed and delivers a statistical analysis of brain electrical activity within a few minutes.

Bx, the technology platform at the heart of BrainScope’s products, is based on non-linear algorithms developed using thousands of patient data records encompassing a wide range of confirmed brain dysfunction. These algorithms extract, sort, and organize key signal features from noisy, complex non-linear brain waves, and employ those features in statistical discriminant functions.

The superiority of the Bx platform rests primarily on two points: the database of brainwave recordings, which serves as the basis for developing profiles or patterns of deviation from normal values for various types of brain abnormalities, against which a given patient’s electrical brain activity can be compared; and cutting edge non-linear mathematics, including advanced wavelet theory, which will allow future BrainScope devices to aid the medical professionals in assessment of a patient’s brain electrical activity.

In the long term, BrainScope future products aim to not only aid the medical professional in assessment of the abnormality and asymmetry of brain function, but also help distinguish mild from severe concussions, types of stroke, seizure and other functional impairments, and help identify Alzheimer’s/dementia, depression, and other neurologically-based functional impairments. These products are currently under development and significant clinical trials will be required to show feasibility and validate clinical usefulness of these planned adjunctive tools.

Other remote neurosensing devices have attracted the attention of investors and medical device giants. Everest Biomedical, which was founded by BrainScope founder Elvir Causevic, sold its AudioScreener infant brain monitor to Viasys Healthcare (now Cardinal Health) in 2006. Everest and its SNAP II intraoperative surgical monitor were sold to Stryker Corp. in 2007. Also in 2007, Natus Medical acquired Excel-Tech Ltd., a Canadian manufacturer of wireless neuromonitoring systems.

Cleveland Medical Devices, Inc. has also developed a number of portable and remote neuromonitoring systems, including its Kinesia device, a wireless system used to assess Parkinson’s tremor, and BioCapture, a research system incorporating a 12-channel monitor.