Medical experts: Accelerate clinical use of brain-computer interface to benefit public health

As China released a high-tech medical device to help some 23 million children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), scientists and medical experts have called for the accelerated clinical translation of brain-computer interface (BCI) to benefit mankind.

Tan Weihong, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said BCI can establish an integrated system of "diagnosis-treatment-rehabilitation" and its clinical translation should be accelerated to serve human health.

Following official approval, Zhejiang Qiangnao Technology Co Ltd (BrainCo) released the ADHD intervention product "FocusXin" Medical Edition on Jan 31 in Beijing during the Brain-Computer Interface Diagnosis and Treatment Innovation Academic Exchange Meeting and Technology Launch.

"Whether BCI can really bring good news to patients is our most fundamental purpose," Tan said.

The product has taken the lead globally in achieving the joint use of software and hardware medical devices for children's attention training, opening up a new path for the rehabilitation of tens of millions of ADHD children. This marked a new stage in the standardized clinical application of BCI technology in the field of pediatric neurorehabilitation.

ADHD is considered one of the common psychological and behavioral disorders in children. The first epidemiological report on mental disorders among children and adolescents in China showed that the total prevalence of mental disorders among students aged 6-16 in China is 17.5 percent, of which ADHD accounts for about 6.4 percent — affecting about 23 million children.

During the event's academic exchange session, Zhang Guojun, former Party secretary of Beijing Children's Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, said that new technologies such as BCI have opened up new avenues for surgery and can provide a new intervention path for problems difficult to solve with drugs. Several pediatric experts agreed that BCI has great potential in the field of pediatric medicine and needs to be unleashed through multidisciplinary collaboration.

The "FocusXin" Medical Edition includes rehabilitation training software and a prefrontal lobe single-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) collector — both of which have obtained medical device registration certificates — achieving full-chain medical device certification for both software and hardware.

The product is lightweight and easy to operate — breaking the complex wiring and high threshold of traditional EEG equipment — and achieving an important breakthrough in BCI technology from the laboratory to clinical application.

Han Bicheng, founder and CEO of BrainCo, said the company is committed to helping millions of disabled people improve their lives in the next decade and helping tens of millions of patients with neuropsychiatric diseases recover.

During a round-table dialogue session, experts exchanged views on the multi-party collaboration mechanism for ADHD treatment, unanimously agreeing that it is necessary to promote collaboration among hospitals, enterprises, schools, and other parties, to optimize clinical pathways, cultivate professional talents, and build a benign application ecosystem so that technology can truly benefit more children with ADHD.

Please contact the writer at yinmingyue@chinadaily.com.cn