By Harmeet Kaur
Digital Editor
A team of scientists from Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology won a national Head Health Challenge for their technology that tests for impairment after a concussion or brain injury, on Nov. 13.
Launched by the National Football League (NFL), Under Armour and General Electric (GE), Head Health Challenge II named seven winners for the challenge, and the Emory-Georgia Tech team was one that received a grant of $500,000, according to a Nov. 13 University press release.
The team's technology, integrated Display Enhanced Technology for Cognitive Impairment and mTBI (iDETECT), is a portable system that tests for impaired processing and sensory areas of the brain after a concussion or brain injury, according to Tamara Espinoza, assistant professor in the department of Emergency Medicine and one of the primary investigators on the project.
iDETECT tests balance, reaction time, memory and cognitive processing, Espinoza wrote in an email to the Wheel. It provides an immersive test environment using a display, goggles and noise-reducing headphones. She explained that test questions are provided visually on the display and via audio through the headphones, with users submitting their answers via a handheld platform.
"It's a screening device that tells you whether or not someone needs to get more tests done or seen by a specialty neurologist," Shean Phelps, a researcher at Georgia Tech who is also a primary investigator on the project, said.
Espinoza added that since the technology is portable, iDETECT could provide immediate data on location to medical staff on field sidelines or in locker rooms while caring for individuals after a potential concussion.
"We anticipate iDETECT will improve the identification of individuals with neurologic impairments after a concussion in a more acute time period, thereby allowing for removal from play and potential mitigation of further injury," she wrote.
According to Espinoza, iDETECT also has applicable uses outside the athletic world. "iDETECT has significant potential to enhance the assessment and management of traumatic brain injury in the military, as well as other non-traditional medical care environments," Espinoza wrote. "Future applications may include the assessment of cognitive impairment in the elderly, or the evaluation of balance and gait stability for those at high risk for falls."
iDETECT evolved into its current form from a technology initially called DETECT, a developed by David Wright, director of Emergency Neurosciences in the School of Medicine, and Michelle LaPlaca, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech, explained Phelps. While DETECT used a single approach to detect concussions, iDETECT uses a "multimodal platform" to assess brain injuries.
"We said we're going to break the paradigm and go at this from a multidimensional perspective," Phelps said. "We wanted to use different testing modalities and put them together. [We wanted to] look at multiple things at once: really task the brain and try and tease out the truth."
The official website for the Head Health Challenge also states that the Emory-Georgia Tech team will have the opportunity to win an additional $1 million to advance its work on brain injury. The initial $500,000 grant is phase I of the challenge. The seven award winners will submit progress reports to the Head Health Challenge over the next six months and based on those results, up to five winners will be selected to receive phase II grants of $1 million.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 2010 had 2.5 million cases of traumatic brain injury.
– By Harmeet Kaur, Digital Editor
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