Developing responsible neurotechnology for infants and children with neurodevelopmental conditions

为患有神经发育疾病的婴儿和儿童开发负责任的神经技术

• 批准号: EP/W035154/1
• 负责人: Eva Loth
• 金额: $ 135.8万
• 依托单位: King's College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FW035154%2F1
• 关键词: Developing; responsible; neurotechnology; infants; children

Approximately 1 in 10 children in the UK has a neurodevelopmental condition (including Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Intellectual Disability and specific learning and motor disabilities). Neurodevelopmental conditions often have a life-long impact on the person's (and their family's) quality of life. This includes on average lower education, greater unemployment, lack of independence, susceptibility to violence, and high rates of mental health problems. On the whole, there are few therapies available that are effective. Key factors are late diagnosis, after critical periods of brain growth are completed, and substantial differences between individuals with the same umbrella diagnosis in terms of clinical features and underlying biology, meaning that "one size does not fit all". Precision medicine aims to transform healthcare by tailoring therapies to individual brain profiles. It is based on the assumption that diagnosis can be improved if it is based on the underlying cause or mechanisms rather than merely symptoms and that atypicalities in brain development may precede some overt behavioural differences. However, applying precision medicine to young children with neurodevelopmental conditions depends on having accurate and reliable ways of measuring brain activity and behaviour. For example, to aid early identification of children with difficulties, we need ways of measuring brain activity in the home or nursery. To identify the best ways to help children, and when they need to be offered, we need tools that can adjust brain measurements as they are taken. These tools must be for all children, including those with severe intellectual or motor disability, so we need tools that measure brain activity during tasks with low motor or attentional demands, such as eye-tracking or touchscreen devices.Despite significant advances in the development of new technologies for measuring brain function in infants and young children, few instruments are used in the clinic. One challenge is making sure that such technologies are designed to permit consistent application, so readings can be reliably compared across time and across children. We also need superior computational methods for turning large amounts of multidimensional data into clinically useful information about an individual child. Hence, to make transformative changes we need to develop the right technology for the right populations for the right purposes. The goal of our network is to bring together a community of people from different backgrounds including charities and families of children with neurodevelopmental conditions, ethicists, experts in brain development, psychologists, psychiatrists, bioengineers, physicists, regulators and policy makers to develop a new generation of neurotechnology to drive forwards precision medicine for infants and young children with neurodevelopmental conditions. The scope of our network is to: (1) build an inclusive community and develop a hub that allows academics from the bioengineering and medical fields, industry and innovators, parents and people with various neurodevelopmental conditions to connect (2) identify priorities and gaps and publish our results, and (3i) carry out innovative feasibility studies to support and attract larger investments, (4) investigate ethical challenges with parents and people with lived experience to ensure that neurotechnology developments are acceptable, safe and feasible for children and parents; (5) create roadmaps to accelerate the development of new technologies for assessment, monitoring and interventions in the clinic and at home, and develop strategies for companies to invest in these technologies, to make them affordable and implement them in the UK health service, and (6) propose training programmes to train a new generation of scientists in this new interdisciplinary field.

英国大约十分之一的儿童患有神经发育疾病（包括自闭症谱系障碍、多动症、智力障碍以及特定的学习和运动障碍）。神经发育状况通常会对人（及其家人）的生活质量产生终生影响。这包括平均受教育程度较低、失业率较高、缺乏独立性、容易遭受暴力以及心理健康问题发生率较高。总体而言，有效的治疗方法很少。关键因素是在大脑生长的关键时期完成后诊断较晚，以及具有相同总括诊断的个体在临床特征和基础生物学方面存在显着差异，这意味着“一刀切”。精准医学旨在通过根据个体大脑特征定制治疗方法来改变医疗保健。它基于这样的假设：如果基于根本原因或机制而不仅仅是症状，则可以改善诊断，并且大脑发育的非典型性可能先于一些明显的行为差异。然而，对患有神经发育疾病的幼儿应用精准医学取决于是否有准确可靠的方法来测量大脑活动和行为。例如，为了帮助及早识别有困难的儿童，我们需要测量家庭或托儿所大脑活动的方法。为了确定帮助儿童的最佳方法以及何时需要提供这些方法，我们需要能够在测量时调整大脑测量值的工具。这些工具必须适用于所有儿童，包括那些患有严重智力或运动障碍的儿童，因此我们需要一些工具来测量运动或注意力需求较低的任务期间的大脑活动，例如眼动追踪或触摸屏设备。测量婴幼儿脑功能的新技术，在临床上使用的仪器很少。一项挑战是确保此类技术的设计允许一致的应用，以便可以跨时间和跨儿童可靠地比较读数。我们还需要先进的计算方法，将大量多维数据转化为有关单个儿童的临床有用信息。因此，为了实现变革，我们需要为正确的人群、出于正确的目的开发正确的技术。我们网络的目标是将来自不同背景的人们聚集在一起，包括慈善机构和患有神经发育疾病的儿童的家庭、伦理学家、大脑发育专家、心理学家、精神病学家、生物工程师、物理学家、监管机构和政策制定者，以培养新一代神经技术推动患有神经发育疾病的婴幼儿的精准医疗。我们网络的范围是：(1) 建立一个包容性社区并开发一个中心，让来自生物工程和医学领域的学者、行业和创新者、家长和患有各种神经发育状况的人相互联系 (2) 确定优先事项和差距，并公布我们的结果，(3i) 开展创新的可行性研究，以支持和吸引更大的投资，(4) 与父母和有生活经验的人一起调查道德挑战，以确保神经技术的发展对儿童和父母来说是可接受的、安全的和可行的； (5) 制定路线图，加速开发用于诊所和家庭评估、监测和干预的新技术，并为公司制定投资这些技术的战略，使其负担得起并在英国医疗服务中实施，以及(6) 提出培训计划，以培养这一新的跨学科领域的新一代科学家。