Imaging System Rapidly Diagnoses and Aids Assessment of Strokes

A portable brain imaging system can rapidly detect many abnormal neurological conditions that have a vascular basis.

The Jan Medical brain sensing system consists of three primary components; a headset with sensors; a controlling digital signal processor connected to a personal computer (PC); and the proprietary Jan Medical-developed algorithms. The headset is responsible for acquiring signals from the brain; the PC controls the measurement process and interfaces with the operator; and the algorithms--which are Jan Medical's proprietary diagnostic and prognostic intellectual property--are able to identify rapidly cerebral vascular abnormalities such as strokes.


The system's portability lends its uses to include eventually brain disorder triage in hospital emergency rooms (ERs) and military battlefields, as well as professional, high school, and college sports teams. The system is portable, fast, and enables the timely identification of ischemic stroke. Studies have also demonstrated the potential of uniquely identifying sports concussions. The Jan Medical brain sensing system is under development by Jan Medical (Mountain View, CA, USA), and has been limited by the US Food and Drug administration (FDA) to investigational use only.

"Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the US and the leading cause of disability. While some 1.5 million patients present annually with what appear to be stroke symptoms, half of them have actually not had a stroke,” said Paul Lovoi, PhD, CEO of Jan Medical. "We believe that our system can have an enormously favorable impact by empowering healthcare providers to make a reliable assessment of stroke in just minutes. Patient outcomes will then be improved because healthcare providers will have the correct and timely information they need to treat their patients faster, at lower cost and less risk.”

"The small size, portability, and rapidity of imaging will allow diagnosis of stroke victims in minutes, which in turn will allow for stroke triage outside of a hospital setting, thus further reducing the time to initial treatment, which should dramatically improve patient outcomes,” added Kieran Murphy, MD, of the department of medical imaging at the University of Toronto (Canada).

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