ECG-like Device Diagnoses Neurological Disorders in one Hour

An innovative diagnostic technique that examines patterns of electrical activity in the brain's vestibular system could dramatically affect the detection of mental and neurological illnesses.

Researchers at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) have developed a new technique called electrovestibulography (EVestG), which measures and compares different patterns of electrovestibular activity against distinct response patterns found in depression, schizophrenia, and other central nervous system (CNS) disorders. EVestG measures the brain's electrical activity before and after stimulation of the vestibular system through use of sensors placed within each ear canal. A proprietary neural event extraction routine (NEER) captures data related to proprietary objective biomarkers indicative of specific CNS disorders. The measurement takes less than 30 minutes and takes place in a specially designed tilt chair that triggers electrical responses in the balance system. The electrode placed in the patient's ear canal is gel-tipped, silencing interfering noise, so that only meaningful electrical responses are captured and recorded. The responses are then compared to the distinct biomarkers indicative of particular CNS disorders, allowing diagnosis to be made in under an hour.


"This could be one of the most significant inventions ever to come out of Monash. CNS disorders cost upwards of US$2 trillion globally and affect one in four people sometime in their lifetime,” said Roger Edwards, Ph.D., CEO of Neural Diagnostics (Melbourne, Australia), a corporate partner of Monash University that is developing and patenting EVestG. "At present, diagnosing these conditions is done almost exclusively by qualitative measures, through questions and interviews, and it can take many years for sufferers to be correctly diagnosed.”

CNS conditions include Schizophrenia, Depression, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Multiple Sclerosis, and Bipolar Disorder. These disorders have subtypes difficult to separate one from another, yet each subtype has a different treatment, which if misdiagnosed, extends the patient's suffering. One in 4 people globally will suffer from a serious CNS disorder in their lifetime, and 3% to 5% of the population in developed countries are being treated for these CNS conditions at any point in time. The majority of current diagnostic tests are subjective and rely upon the scarce skill and restricted access to the relatively few psychiatric and neurological specialists for accurate diagnosis.

Related Links:
Monash University
Neural Diagnostics