STTR Phase I: Remediating Inattention via Algorithmically Generated Music

小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于通过简单地听算法生成的音乐，在几分钟内治疗临床和亚临床注意力不集中。注意力不集中有着戏剧性的临床和非临床后果。在非临床方面，近90%的人证实在工作场所浪费时间，这种效率降低仅在美国就估计有1万亿美元的经济影响。在临床层面，注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）是最具特征的注意力缺陷，影响着美国超过800万儿童，主要解决方案是处方兴奋剂的近乎流行性增长。然而，超过400万的美国成年人不符合ADHD诊断的所有标准（因此不能开药），并且没有方便的治疗替代品。Brain.fm是一个非侵入性听觉刺激平台，旨在治疗注意力不集中。它产生的音乐是专门设计来刺激我们大脑中的注意力网络的，它利用了神经科学中关于神经元如何跟随刺激节奏的最新概念。我们的目标是让Brain.fm成为一个有效的、非侵入性的治疗工具，帮助每一个患有走神的人，无论他们是否符合ADHD的诊断标准。该项目旨在通过实验证明通过听觉刺激引起的注意力的普遍变化。几十年来，神经科学家已经观察到大脑中的波状活动，并将它们与注意力状态联系起来。通过非侵入性脑刺激改变注意力状态的能力，对于日常功能来说是非常可取的，对于理解脑电波与行为的关系也是至关重要的。该项目测试了一种新颖的听觉神经科学平台解决方案，用于通过音乐提供非侵入性脑刺激。除了通过全面的行为和功能磁共振成像研究建立一种革命性的方法，通过调整脑电波来非侵入性地增强注意力外，我们还测试了这种方法治疗注意力不集中的疗效，特别是在注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）的成年人中。该项目的主要成果是：1）非临床（但机构审查委员会批准）研究，确定这种听觉疗法如何影响成年ADHD易感人群的注意力，2）更深入地了解注意力和神经元夹带的神经生理学机制，以及3）通过在现有客户群中测试我们算法生成的音乐的不同版本来优化我们的产品。研究结果有望显示，专门设计的声学刺激如何支持持续注意力背后的神经元振荡，从而提高生产力和幸福感。

The broader impact/commercial potential of Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project lies in treating clinical and subclinical inattention within a few minutes, by simply listening to algorithmically-generated music. Failures of attention have dramatic clinical and non-clinical ramifications. In the non-clinical side, nearly 90% of people attest to wasting time in the workplace, and this reduced efficiency has an estimated $1 T economic impact in the US alone. At the clinical level, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the best-characterized attentional deficit, affects over 8M children in the US, with the leading solution being a near-epidemic growth of prescriptions stimulants. However, over 4 M American adults do not meet all the criteria to be diagnosed with ADHD (and therefore cannot be prescribed medication), and have no convenient alternatives for treatment. Brain.fm is a non-invasive auditory stimulation platform designed to treat inattention. It generates music designed specifically to stimulate attentional networks in our brain by exploiting the latest neuroscience concepts of how neurons entrain to stimulus rhythms. Our objective is for Brain.fm to become a validated, non-invasive therapeutic tool for Attention to help everyone who suffers from mind wandering, regardless of whether they meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD. The proposed project is aimed at experimentally demonstrating generalizable changes in attention through auditory stimulation. For decades, neuroscientists have observed wave-like activity in the brain and related them to attentional states. The ability to change attentional states, via noninvasive brain stimulation, would be greatly desirable for everyday functioning as well as crucial for understanding how brain waves relate to behavior. The proposed project tests a novel auditory neuroscience-informed platform solution for delivering noninvasive brain stimulation through music. In addition to establishing a revolutionary method to enhance attention noninvasively by tuning brain waves through comprehensive behavioral and fMRI studies, we test the efficacy of this method to treat inattention, especially in adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Key outcomes of this project are: 1) non clinical (but Institutional Review Board-approved) studies that determine how this auditory therapy impacts attention on an adult ADHD prone population, 2) a deeper understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms of attention and neuronal entrainment, and 3)optimization of our product by testing different versions of our algorithmically generated music on our existing customer base. Results are expected to show how purpose-built acoustic stimulation can support the neuronal oscillations underlying sustained attention, thus boosting productivity and well-being.