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.

英国大约有十分之一的儿童患有神经发育状况（包括自闭症谱系障碍，多动症，智力障碍，特定的学习和运动障碍）。神经发育状况通常会对该人（及其家人）生活质量产生终生影响。这包括平均教育程度，更大的失业，缺乏独立性，对暴力的易感性以及心理健康问题的高度。总体而言，有效的疗法很少。关键因素是晚期诊断，在完成脑生长的关键时期之后，在临床特征和潜在的生物学方面，具有相同伞诊断的个体之间存在实质性差异，这意味着“一个尺寸并不适合全部”。精密医学旨在通过将疗法定制为单个大脑特征来改变医疗保健。它基于这样的假设，即，如果诊断是基于根本原因或机制而不是仅仅症状的诊断，并且大脑发育中的非典型性可能在某些明显的行为差异之前。但是，将精确药物应用于神经发育状况的幼儿取决于具有准确可靠的方法来衡量大脑活动和行为。例如，为了帮助早期识别有困难的儿童，我们需要测量家庭或托儿所中大脑活动的方法。为了确定帮助儿童的最佳方法，并且在需要提供时，我们需要可以在进行时调整大脑测量的工具。这些工具必须适用于所有儿童，包括严重的智力或运动障碍的儿童，因此我们需要在运动或注意力低下或注意力需求的任务中测量大脑活动的工具，例如眼球跟踪或触摸屏设备。尽管在诊所中使用了新技术来开发用于测量婴儿和幼儿的大脑功能的重大进展，但在诊所中使用了很少的乐器。一个挑战是确保此类技术旨在允许使用一致的应用，因此可以在整个时间和儿童之间可靠地比较读数。我们还需要卓越的计算方法，以将大量的多维数据转换为有关单个儿童的临床有用信息。因此，为了进行变革性的改变，我们需要为正确的目的开发正确的技术。我们网络的目的是将来自不同背景的人组成，包括慈善机构和具有神经发育状况的儿童，伦理学家，脑发育专家，心理学家，精神病医生，生物工程师，物理学家，监管机构，监管机构和政策制定者，以开发新一代的神经技术，以使神经药物促进临时医学，以促进婴儿疾病和Neurodement conderant anderode anderode anderode dovermental anderode anderode anderode anderode anderode severvection and neurodement and dovermental severmental severally distrape and dosement and dosemental specional。我们网络的范围是：（1）建立一个包容性社区并开发一个枢纽，该枢纽允许来自生物工程和医疗领域，行业和创新者，父母以及各种神经发育条件的人，以联系（2）确定优先级和差距并发布我们的成果，并以（3i）进行更大的投资研究，以确保（3i）的挑战（4）神经技术的发展是可以接受的，安全的和可行的； （5）创建路线图，以加快在诊所和家里进行评估，监测和干预措施的新技术的开发，并制定策略，以使公司投资这些技术，使其使其负担得起并在英国卫生服务中实施，并提议在这个新的跨学科领域中培训一系列科学家。