A Philadelphia startup spun out of the University of Pennsylvania is developing a wearable, brain-monitoring device that the company's leaders believe could dramatically improve how mental health conditions are diagnosed and treated.
Cogwear, which is operating out of Penn's Singh Center for Nanotechnology, is working on what it describes as a "wearable anxiety thermometer."
The as-yet-unnamed device is based on technology developed by the company's co-founders: Penn researcher Dr. Michael Platt and his former research associate Arjun Ramakrishnan.
Cogwear was recently awarded $256,000 from the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovation Research Program to accelerate the product's development and commercialization.
Cogwear’s product, explained company CEO David Yonce, looks like an athletic headband but actually features a portable electroencephalogram and clinical-grade sensors that measure brain activity linked to anxiety, depression, attention and fatigue. The company has also developed algorithms to decode the brain signals the device's nanowire sensors collect.
The headband connects to an app that collects patient data in real-time and displays a dashboard of historical trends — making it function as a kind of smartwatch for the brain. Patients can share this information with their doctors, therapists, psychiatrists or other healthcare providers through a private portal.
“We believe that Cogwear will help diagnose and treat mental health more accurately and quickly by offering a true physiological vital sign based on brain activity," Yonce said. "Cogwear can measure what’s happening in the brain. This way, patients and their care providers can collaborate remotely and better understand whether therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes are effective.”
Yonce said doctors routinely rely on thermometers to measure a patient's temperature and gain insight into what’s happening in their body. In mental health, he said, doctors haven't had such a tool and have relied largely on patient's response to questions — which don't always provide an accurate picture.
The company, which was founded in 2018 and has five employees, plans to use the National Science Foundation grant to refine and miniaturize its device's tiny electroencephalography sensors that analyze the brain’s electrical activity. It previously raised about $100,000 from private investors as the company developed early prototypes of, and algorithms for, the product.
“Our hope is that Cogwear will help people with mental illness get diagnosed and treated better and faster," Yonce said.
Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, studies estimated nearly 265 million people worldwide — including 40 million Americans — suffered from anxiety or depression. Those numbers have climbed during the pandemic.
Electroencephalogram testing, because of its cost and complexity, has historically been limited to research laboratories and requires patients to sit still while they are monitored.
"Our goal is to adapt this technology so we can offer clinical-grade data to patients at home or on-the-go, and at an affordable price point,” Platt said.
Platt is on the faculty of Penn's School of Arts and Sciences, Perelman School of Medicine, and Wharton School, where he is the founder and director of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative. Ramakrishnan, Cogwear's other co-founder, is now assistant professor of biological sciences and bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur.
Yonce said he estimates, conservatively, that the company is about two years from submitting an application with the Food and Drug Administration to begin testing the device, initially in anxiety patients.
