Unlocking the invisible world of the mind: Rezon’s wearable neuroimaging tech

Interview

At this yr’s Linked North convention, the inaugural Begin-up Competitors noticed ten shortlisted start-ups take to the stage to current their enterprise to a panel of professional judges.

We caught up with Judith McMinn, founding father of successful start-up Rezon, to be taught extra in regards to the firm’s concussion-reducing headband and the way they’re integrating wearable mind electroencephalogram (EEG) expertise.

Judith McMinn, founding father of Rezon, celebrates successful the Linked North startup competitors

Firstly, congratulations on successful the startup competitors at this yr’s Linked North! Inform us slightly about your background and the way you got here up with the concept for Rezon?

Thanks!

My skilled background is in administration consulting, so I’m an issue solver by commerce, and the core concept behind Rezon is definitely to do with an issue I first encountered in childhood.

Like many individuals, I performed hockey as a toddler, and I typically puzzled why we protected our shins and our tooth, however not our mind. Protecting gear in sport is usually designed to guard the scalp, like scrum caps, or the top extra typically, like helmets, however little or no is completed to guard the mind itself.

In the previous couple of years there’s been a rising consciousness round mind damage in sport, notably in American soccer with CTE (persistent traumatic encephalopathy) and, extra lately, in rugby. Figuring out concussions have been a significant focus for each the media and sporting our bodies, however its sub-concussions – small drive impacts which are round 500 occasions extra frequent than concussions – which are additionally inflicting main lasting injury to the mind.

And there’s little being finished to guard in opposition to this.

What makes these sub-concussions so harmful? 

Nicely, it’s actually vital to know the physicality of the mind. When a head influence happens, rotational forces trigger the mind to rotate contained in the cranium, and when the mind rotates it tears mind cells and tiny blood vessels, creating irritation.

Sub-concussions like this are brought on by only a quarter of the drive of an everyday concussion and, in contrast to full concussions, they’re utterly asymptomatic.

Nevertheless, over time, with hundreds of impacts going down, the injury accumulates, contributing to neurological circumstances like early-onset dementia, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, reminiscence points, and rather more.

For instance, analysis tells us that when you’ve had 1,000,000 radians per second (the measure of rotational acceleration, i.e., rotational drive) utilized to your mind, your threat of CTE is elevated by 22%. Head impacts in sport can typically be as much as 8,000–9,000 radians per second in a sport of soccer or rugby, so in lots of circumstances we’re speaking simply 100–200 impacts to go that threshold.

For reference, the common rugby participant will seemingly take1,500 sub-concussions a season! The typical soccer participant will take 600. So, the size of this challenge is gigantic, and for each participant, not simply these in skilled sport.

We knew in a short time that we wanted to discover a option to scale back these rotational forces on the mind, and partially in sub-concussive impacts, so this was the main focus for our Halos headband.

Inform us extra in regards to the Halos headband and the way it works?

In 2020, I began investigating mind well being extra deeply and commenced bringing collectively mind and manufacturing consultants to create an answer.

After two years of analysis, we created our Halos headband, which is a patented design of 9 layers of fabric. As the top is impacted, a few of these layers deform and transfer over one another, basically lowering the power that’s delivered to the mind.

Our research have proven that sporting the Halos can scale back rotational forces by as much as 61%. We additionally had it examined by Virginia Tech, who gave it 5-stars after discovering it to scale back the danger of concussion by 74%.

We’ve labored exhausting to make sure that the headscarf is sport agnostic, gender agonistic, and age agnostic. That’s actually vital, as a result of defending your mind wants to start out early in life. You don’t get early onset dementia simply since you turned up on the Manchester United Academy otherwise you began taking part in for Harlequins as a younger grownup. You get it since you began taking part in at three or 4 and have amassed injury since then.

After all, each mind is exclusive. There are some individuals who can take hundreds and hundreds of impacts with no apparent penalties, and different individuals, sadly, the place the brink is way decrease. However we all know that the brink is decrease in ladies, and we all know it’s decrease in kids, so these teams are notably susceptible.

We’re a British firm fashioned in County Durham and we make our protecting headband right here within the UK. It’s absolutely recyclable and carbon footprint of the band is simply 0.4kg, so the equal of driving a mile within the automobile.

We introduced our protecting headband to market within the spring of 2022, and we at the moment are used 18 sports activities, various from the standard sports activities related to head impacts like rugby and soccer all the way in which to extra unconventional sports activities like handball and quadball, which individuals would know as quidditch.

Now, with our US-partner Cogwear, we’re placing mind monitoring tech throughout the Halos to wearers to higher perceive their very own mind well being.

Inform us extra about this collaboration with Cogware

The Rezon Halos headband with neuroimaging tech from Cogwear

What Cogware have developed is the world’s first in-motion clinical-grade EEG  expertise, which measures your mind exercise. EEG itself shouldn’t be a brand new expertise, but it surely’s historically been extremely cumbersome, pricey and inconvenient – it often requires you to sit down in a darkened room with an enormous swim cap on, instructed to not transfer, don’t sneeze, don’t speak… Cogwear have miniaturised the expertise in order that it’s in regards to the dimension of your thumb.

We’ve mixed this with our Halos design, that means that sporting the headscarf can give you scientific grade mind knowledge in real-time. Folks can baseline their mind well being within the consolation of their very own dwelling or their very own altering room earlier than sport begins, in order that they’ll correctly assess the severity of impacts throughout the sport. This can enable us to diagnose concussions and sub-concussions as they occur, holding gamers safer and serving to to find out when or if they’re match to return to play.

All brains are totally different, and the easiest way to watch mind well being is to watch your mind in opposition to your mind. We’re giving individuals a real-time view of their mind exercise to allow them to make extra knowledgeable choices.

With the ability to measure brainwaves in motion like that is very thrilling! Are there some other functions for this expertise you’re presently exploring?

Nicely, what’s actually attention-grabbing about this expertise is that it will probably measure not simply injury from collisions, however every kind of efficiency parts. Brainwaves can reveal rather a lot about our steel state, from stress to focus ranges.

For instance, we’ve been doing work within the US focussed on golf, and we are able to now precisely predict the shot {that a} golfer’s going to take by monitoring the mind.

That’s the groundbreaking in terms of understanding sporting efficiency. Who has the perfect psychological state to take the match-winning penalty kick? What does an elite athlete’s mind appear to be? How does my mind deal with an intense coaching session? These are all questions this very subtle neurotechnology will assist to reply and that has massive implications for the sporting world and past.

We envisage the Halos getting used for teaching and coaching, in addition to for defense.

Our focus has at all times been on unlocking the invisible world of the mind, and doing so in a versatile manner that fits the person. The mind is slowly changing into extra understood by subtle neuroimaging, and I believe that is going to alter the dialog. Quickly individuals will start desirous about their brains by way of weight-reduction plan or health, like some other physique half.

Need to know extra about Rezon, mind well being, and concussion safety? Be a part of Judith and Rezon at Linked Britain 2024! Get your tickets now