Cogny

Cogny gamifies traditional neuropsychological assessment tests that are usually administered through either pen and paper or 2D computer interfaces. The neuropsychological tests we offer are administered through virtual reality, where children, aged 6 to 16 interact in a classroom environment, an ecologically valid environment that makes us able to extract the right data in the right circumstances. For 6 minutes, the child is faced with exercices that test for his/her/their sustained attention (both visual and auditory), memory, executive functioning and other cognitive capacities. For our prototype , we're mainly focused on attentional assessment (for ADHD in particular). The child is asked to click on a button whenever he/she/they see a target while ecologically valid distractions are being thrown at known and studied ratios. The ability to include distractions in a realistic manner within a realistic environments adds to the accuracy of the assessment system, an accuracy that has been shown limited or rather subjective in other assessment methodologies available in the clinical and screening sphere. 

Apart from task performance metrics (such as omission and commission errors, response time and response time variability), we're also taking different representative biometrics including EEG from a one channel connected to the prefrontal cortex (through a lightweight EEG headband) that we've ergonomically attached to our VR headset), gaze pattern (through integrated eye tracking system), pupil dilation and hand movement (to test for fidgetiness). Taking varying levels of biodata enables us to dress a clear behavioral phenotype of the child's brain abilities as each biodata extracted reveals a separate layer of cognitive performance.

Cogny is designed  not only to  be considered as a diagnosis aid in cognitive abilities phenotyping within the clinical setting but also to be put forward as a screening tool in educational settings, which we consider our first touchpoint in the whole patient to diagnosis journey.

Students, in particular those who face the 'biggest barriers' as mentioned in the prompt, are those whose cognitive difficulties go the most unnoticed. In an ideal world, these children would all have access to an extensive neuropsychological assessment test that would clearly pinpoint their brain weaknesses and strengths , enabling educators to tailor their approach to their individual needs and to plan for their academic journey along with parents. 

Unfortunately, neuropsychological exams as they are present as time consuming, taking 4-6 hours if not several sessions , are administered by a decreasing number of specialized psychologists (neuropsychologists as not all psychologists are able to do behavioral phenotyping) which make these services considered as tertiary care. Screening for these same neuropsychological exams are limited in nature as they rely on subjective accounts of the child's environment are are only taken into account when the child exhibits disturbing behavior leaving cases (such as girls with attentional deficits for example) unnoticed and untreated. 

With our VR screening tool, local school infirmaries in schools can administer , for 6 minutes each , a holistic assessment test and have a clear understanding of each child's brain abilities and be able to suggest further assistance if needed. 

Not only this, but our screening tool is cultural agnostic as it deals mainly with shapes and colors and doesn't rely on linguistic audio that would make it inaccessible to certain cultures meaning that it can easily be administered in US schools. 

Our team is made of Dr.Marc Barakat, a neuropsychologist at the American University of Beirut Medical Center who is able to guide a clinical trial that would cover more than 60% of the country's children with cognitive disorders in collaboration with the children psychiatry department. 

Other team members include Akshit Anchan and me, Emma Sleiman, who have previously worked on digital solutions that target communities in crisis with a successful outcome. 

With the right clinical background provided by Dr.Marc and his reach to the community whether it be nationally or internationally (through the medical center's communications office), we're able to capture a rich set of data that can help us truly understand the cognitive profiling necessities of students internationally and build a culturally agnostic assessment test that we hope to make standardized.

We have bee enrolled in technical accelerators and have now a fully functional prototype (a VR headset that captures the data that we want with ergonomically integrated EEG headband and a Unity game that complies with the script designed using prior research) and have gained the IRB to start conducting clinical trials within the AUB Medical Center.

What makes our solution innovation is that it takes giving objective cognitive profiling of student's abilities from a reliable clinical perspective based on ages old existing clinical exams and makes them accessible, through a gamified experience to children worldwide. 

In addition, the integration of different sources of biodata in an ergonomically accessible way makes the test able to give a more detailed view of the child's cognitive abilities rather than provide a blunt end diagnosis (meaning instead of saying 'the child has ADHD' our test is here to say 'the child has attentional deficits with no signs of hyperactivity') therefore working through the nuances of cognitive profiling and cognitive problems. 

In addition, our solution is culturally agnostic as it relies on shapes and colors and is perceived as 'fun and engaging' by children through our initial piloting test other than the vast literature on the matter.

Our solution overall is ecologically valid, meaning that it takes on the right data in the right environment at the right time making sure that the behavior exhibited and recorded by the child is truly representative of his/her/their cognitive abilities. 

Our solution is powered by two technologies:

1) Spatial Computing : Virtual Reality enabling us to make the assessment ecologically valid in the first place and giving us the possibility to ergonomically and wirelessly obtain the biodata we want through integrated sensors (eye tracking and EEG headband). 

2) Multimodal Machine Learning that analyzes the data and provide cognitive profiling : the data we're acquiring is fed into a multimodal machine learning algorithm that takes from different sources to give the final report (cognitive profile of the child). 

Apart from the literature that uses similar approaches for the cognitive profiling tool we're currently building, the pilot tests we have done through previous technical accelerators in addition to the clinical trials that await for us prove that this technology is adaptable to 6-16 years old (age scope that is is optimal for neuropsychological assessments ) . 

As of now, we're currently enrolling a nationwide clinical trial recruiting children from diverse backgrounds in Lebanon. Nonetheless, as we're doing this , we're reaching out to different medical centers from diverse countries (either provided to us through previous accelerator connections or through the communication office of the university) for a multi-centered second clinical trial where our data will be much more representative. By doing so, we're ensuring that our data is not biased and that our machine learning algorithm is not too (noting that the same game with the same input will be given to all children in our second clinical trial regardless of culture as we're building a standardized culturally agnostic cognitive profiling tool).

There are currently 3 people working on the team: (all of us full time)

1) Emma Sleiman : Executive Officer

2)Akshit Anchan : Technology Officer

3)Dr.Marc Barakat : Science Officer