STTR Phase I: Portable Ultra-Resolution EEG for Improved Diagnosis and Treatment of Brain Disorders: Instrumentation and Algorithms

这个SBIR第一阶段项目将推进开发高分辨率非侵入性脑成像系统的新技术，能够记录便携式系统大脑活动的前所未有的时空分辨率推断。这些系统利用了新的基本分析和结果，以及实验演示，表明脑电(EEG)的空间分辨率在数百个电极的密度下并不饱和，这与临床和神经科学界普遍认为的不同。它们还建立在PI最近的工作基础上，使EEG信号的采集更快、更可靠。这项拟议工作的成功将有助于在损伤发生之前诊断不断恶化的脑损伤。每年有170万美国人受到脑损伤的影响。在商业上，它将为虚拟现实接口和神经假体等应用实现更高分辨率的脑机接口，通过创建一个全新的行业为就业和收入创造新的途径。这一跨学科的努力将神经科学家和工程师聚集在一起，在这一努力中形成的概念将成为基础神经科学和神经工程课程的素材。该团队将继续在临床会议上发表和宣传他们的工作。其中一名核心员工将是一名少数民族女性，她对这项研究做出了贡献，指导了其他几名少数民族(和非少数民族)女学生，现在希望领导该项目的开发结束。这一努力建立了一个系统的平台，挑战了人们普遍认为的脑电电极密度增加到几百个电极以上并不能提高空间分辨率的信念。该平台克服了传统脑电的几个问题：(I)通常只有9-32个电极用于临床诊断，并且从根本上仅限于提供较差的空间分辨率；(Ii)由于传统脑电的分辨率较低，手术治疗通常需要侵入性操作。例如，用于通过测量皮质扩散去极化(CSD)的参数来诊断创伤性脑损伤(TBI)的严重程度或恶化，CSD是恶化脑损伤的介体；(Iii)长期脑电测量很麻烦，高密度系统可能需要数小时的体力劳动才能安装。PI的初步工作提供了强有力的证据，支持超高密度脑电将为高空间和时间分辨率脑成像提供第一种非侵入性和便携模式的说法。将开发新的脑成像算法，并以现有技术为基准，使用新的基本限制进行评估。在导电海绵的设计和降低功率方面将部署新的技术，使平台能够长期便携和使用。这些改进将通过模拟、实验和真实数据分析进行严格测试。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase I project will advance novel techniques for developing high-resolution noninvasive brain imaging systems, capable of recording unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution inferences of the brain activity for a portable system. These systems leverage novel fundamental analysis and results, and experimental demonstrations, that show that spatial resolution of Electroencephalography (EEG) is not saturated at densities of a few hundred electrodes, unlike what has been widely believed in clinical and neuroscience community. They also build on recent work by the PIs that enables faster and reliable acquisition of EEG signals. The success of the proposed work will help diagnose worsening brain injuries before the injury occurs. Brain injuries affect 1.7 million Americans every year. Commercially, it will enable higher resolution brain-machine interfaces for applications such as virtual reality interfacing and neuroprostheses, generating novel avenues for jobs and revenue through creation of an entirely new industry. This transdisciplinary effort brings together neuroscientists and engineers and the concepts developed in this effort will inform material for basic neuroscience and neuroengineering courses. The team will continue to publish and publicize their work at clinical conferences. One of the core employees will be a minority female who has contributed to the research, guided several other minority (and non-minority) female students, and now wants to lead the development end of this project.This effort builds a systematic platform that challenges the widely held belief that increasing electrode-densities of EEG to beyond a few hundred electrodes does not improve spatial resolution. There are several problems with the traditional EEG that the platform overcomes: (i) typically only 9-32 electrodes are used for clinical diagnoses and these are fundamentally limited to only providing poor spatial resolution; (ii) because traditional EEGs have low resolution, surgical treatments often require invasive procedures. E.g., for diagnosing severity or worsening of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) by measuring parameters of cortical spreading depolarizations (CSDs), which are mediators of worsening brain injuries; (iii) long-term EEG measurements are cumbersome, and high-density systems can take hours of manual labor to install. The PIs' preliminary work provides strong evidence supporting the claim that ultra-high-density EEG will provide the first non-invasive and portable modality for high spatial and temporal resolution brain imaging. Novel brain-imaging algorithms will be developed and benchmarked against existing techniques and assessed using novel fundamental limits. Novel techniques will be deployed in the design of conductive sponges and in lowering power, enabling the platform to be portable and usable over long term. These improvements will be rigorously tested through simulations, experiments, and real data analysis.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.