How Google Glass is helping Siberian scientists study brain disease
Siberian scientists are developing a prototype of a model for “virtual testing” that will be able to help identify an individual’s predisposition to certain brain diseases at an early stage. The method may even be used for testing children who are five and older.
The prototype is being developed by collaborators from the Tomsk Polytechnic University and the Siberian State Medical University. In the first stage the scientists used Google Glass to study how healthy people and patients with various diseases react to virtual reality. The project's next stage is the development of software, the creation of an industrial model and clinical tests of the virtual model.
The experiment with Google Glass
During the experiment the doctors analyzed the participants' movements in virtual reality provided by a Google Glass headset, an optical display in the form of eyeglasses..
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"They evaluated the condition of the muscles [EMG], the brain [EEG] and the vestibular system. There is a difference between the vestibular system's reaction in healthy people and that in sick people," said Ivan Tolmachev, one of the model's developers.
The developers remark that the study's main aim is to simultaneously gather a large amount of medical data according to various characteristics. The test was conducted on 70 people: 30 healthy individuals, 20 Parkinson’s patients and 20 people suffering from sclerosis.
The following stage is to develop an industrial sample of the virtual model, which would mean creating a certain type of software. Tolmachev estimates the cost of development to be 1.8 million rubles ($27,500), but this will require certification and further clinical testing.
"In the end, to make the model marketable the project will need about 4.2 million rubles ($64,000)," Tolmachev told RBTH.
The main limit is that the person will have to be aware of what is happening around them and understand the doctor's instructions. The scientists are thinking of working with children who are five and older in order to understand if they are already predisposed to brain disease.
"But this is the next stage," notes Tolmachev.
The German version
In October 2015 scientists from a clinic in Bonn, Germany conducted tests to identify brain disease in virtual reality. According to Nikolai Axmacher, professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences and the project's director, the team does not analyze the patient's movements but rather the brain's activity.
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During the study the patient goes through a virtual test with the help of glass TV screens in a functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner. But the patient's body does not move in reality. They control their virtual movements with the help of a special button.
The scientists realized that in potential patients the activity of part of the cells that in the brain are responsible for coordinating movement is weakened or absent completely.
The German scientists are also not ready to use their model on a broad scale. First, it is necessary to lower the scanning time: "For now it is 75 minutes and this is more than patients can tolerate," said Axmacher.
From the virtual world into the real
In the opinion of Yevgeny Blagoveshchenko, collaborator at the Institute of Translational Biomedicine at St. Petersburg State University, the virtual testing model still cannot be used in clinics. He explained that the Siberian scientists must first examine more patients. It is also necessary that all patients are all in rude health since a simple cold can greatly distort the results.
Blagoveshchenko also stressed that in Russia early diagnosis for brain disease may not find any patients. In most cases healthy people do not undergo medical exams in advance.