Corundum Neuroscience the neuroscience venture builder and fund, today announced it has awarded its first research grant. The project, led by Professor Yuval Nir at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, will investigate a machine learning-based approach for non-invasive detection of abnormal activity in deep brain regions during sleep.
The project aims to develop and validate a capability to identify abnormal brain activity associated with dementia during sleep. While the presence of paroxysmal discharges (PDs) has long been associated with brain disorders, ranging from epilepsy to traumatic brain injury and neuropsychiatric conditions, this type of abnormal brain activity often occurs in deep brain regions and in such cases it has been difficult to measure objectively without requiring invasive measurement tools.
“There is currently no objective tool available with the necessary sensitivity to non-invasively detect and quantify the brain activity signatures we are investigating,” said Prof. Nir, Principal Investigator for the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University.
The project's goals include optimizing and testing detection tools on hd-EEG sleep data of early and late dementia versus healthy aged individuals, in addition to investigating the extent to which sleep PDs can be identified in different stages of neurodegeneration. In the short term, it may help identify individuals with early-stage dementia who could benefit from anti-epileptic treatments. In the long term, the research opens avenues to improve diagnosis, prognosis, drug titration, and risk-stratification in epilepsy, dementia, and a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions.
“We are at a unique time in neuroscience, in which our understanding of the brain from a cellular to a systems level is both contributing to and benefitting from the revolution in AI,” said Josh Schulman, PhD, Chief Scientist for Corundum Neuroscience.
Ramot, Tel-Aviv University’s technology transfer company, is responsible for commercializing the university’s intellectual property. It is supporting this initiative as part of its commitment to translating cutting-edge research into impactful technologies.
"We believe this pioneering research has the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders,” said Dr. Ronen Kreizman, CEO of Ramot.
Caroline Haïat
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