Prepare to be shocked! Can brain enhancing techniques via transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) be the future of performance enhancement? Will it be the future basis of recovery from some mental illnesses, stroke and other neurological diseases? It’s a hot research area, according to this Atlantic article. Researchers at DARPA, University of New Mexico, George Mason University, Stanford University, Oxford University, University of Göttingen and this Editor’s local City College of New York (CCNY) are hot on the trail. Four areas being investigated are (more…)
Sleep monitor for telecare in epilepsy, abnormal night activity
A truly underserved area is monitoring children who have epileptic seizures or other conditions at night. There’s danger to the child and loss of sleep or inability to detect by the parent or guardian. Sleep/activity monitors, baby monitors and movement sensors haven’t been adequate nor accurate. The Epilepsy Foundation (EF) in the US has developed SAMi, a monitoring system consisting of an camera (left) with built-in infra-red LED illumination connecting to an iPhone, iPad or iPod app. At night or designated sleep times, it alerts only for prolonged movement typical of a seizure or other suspect night activity, activating the phone with both audio and video. The movements are also recorded and logged for date/time/duration. It is not inexpensive: the SAMi camera alone is $399 and $949 for the fully configured kit with a iPod plus Wi-Fi router. The new Indiegogo campaign is to raise $90,000 for the next gen camera and to purchase units for charitable distribution to families. Also Medgadget. (A search here on ‘epilepsy’ will confirm the lack of attention to–and the need for–epilepsy monitoring)
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