UO-developed method sharpens brain data.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

A new company spun off by the University of Oregon hopes to clear up some of the fuzzy numbers involved in brain research.

The company, Cerebral Data Systems, will take advantage of a new technique developed by UO researchers that should allow much more precise analysis of brain wave data. The new method eliminates the distortion caused when brain signals pass through the skull to the scalp, where they are picked up by electrodes, company officials said.

The development could give researchers a much more accurate map of where electrical activity is occurring in the brain, possibly aiding research on epilepsy, stroke and other disorders. It also could be used by researchers trying to understand how the brain acquires and processes information.

"This new computational advance gives us a window on the brain that could be a breakthrough in the precision of localizing the brain's electrical activity," said Don Tucker, a UO psychology professor who also is a principal in Electrical Geodesics, another UO spin-off that designs and produces electrophysical neuroimaging equipment and software.

Cerebral Data Systems will be a subsidiary of Electrical Geodesics, which is owned by Tucker and attorney Ann Bunnenberg with partial ownership by the UO. Tucker, Bunnenberg and Allen Malony, director of the UO Neuroinformatics Center - or NIC - will head Cerebral Data Systems.

Co-developers of the new technique are Malony; Serge Turovets, an NIC computational physicist; and Adnan Salman, a UO computational science doctoral student. The university has filed for a preliminary patent on the process.

The technique uses standard methods for acquiring brain wave data but employs a high-powered computing system known as grid computing to filter out distortions and improve accuracy. It's among the first developments to come out of a $1 million grant the UO won last year to install a grid system in its Neuroinformatics Center.

The new method essentially "washes" data acquired through electrodes on the scalp, cleaning up the distortion caused when the brain's weak electrical signals pass through the skull.

"It's a lot like sharpening the focus on a camera lens," Tucker said. "When things are out of focus it's hard to see the pattern."

One of the first ways the new method could be used is in the surgical treatment of epilepsy, officials said.

When drugs or other treatments fail to control epileptic seizures, one option is to remove the tissue where the seizures originate. The problem is locating that tissue when the data from EEGs are blurred in passing through the skull.

"We have to undo that skull smearing to know exactly where that seizure is starting and give the neurosurgeon a map," Tucker said.

The technique marries the strengths of two different ways of analyzing brain activity. EEGs provide good real-time measurements of brain waves but lack precision in locating their source, while magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, provides good spatial maps but not in real time.

What's been missing, Tucker said, is a way to get the accurate maps as brain activity is taking place.

"It turns out we need both, and this kind of a technique could give us both," he said.

One issue still to be overcome before the technique is ready for widespread use is the wide variations in the electrical conductivity of the skull among individuals.

Tucker said future research will explore whether a standard set of adjustments can be used to refine brain wave data in some people.

The new company will use the technique to offer improved brain mapping. Because brain wave data can be processed remotely, the company could provide services to anywhere in the world, and as such is an example of the emerging field of telemedicine.

"The business model is to provide high-performance computing in the neurosurgical planning wherever its done," Tucker said. "Once we set this up, we think it will be an example of telemedicine. Then we won't be limited to the major (medical) centers; it could be used in smaller hospitals as well."