ANTONA-MH
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Accelerating New Therapies with Objective Neurophysiological Assessment for Mental Health: ANTONA-MH
IRAS ID
273588
Contact name
Brian Murphy
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
BrainWaveBank
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 30 days
Research summary
Chronic mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia and depression, are challenging to treat. Key treatment roadblocks are that current assessment tools for diagnosing disease, tracking severity, and measuring the response of individual patients to specific treatments are not objective, robust or timely. Doctors struggle to promptly prescribe effective treatments, and these same deficiencies in assessment tools delay the development and approval of new drugs. Consequently, up to 60% of patients continue to experience negative symptoms or unacceptable side-effects. Annually, psychiatric disease affects 1 in 4 adults in the UK, with unresolved symptoms imposing a national economic burden of over £40 billion/year in the UK and an estimated £1.9 trillion/year globally.
The BrainWaveBank neuroscience platform is designed to address these issues by enabling low-cost, objective recording of brain activity with minimal user training. The headset and tablet can be given to patients to perform longitudinal recordings in the comfort of their own home. Previously, BWB has conducted usability testing in healthy participants (young and older) and patients classified as clinically 'at-risk' for psychotic illness. In this research project, we will proceed to explore the suitability and feasibility of the proposed approach directly in groups of patients who have progressed to 2 psychiatric diseases of interest. Patients in treatment for Depression and Schizophrenia in a HSC Trust in Northern Ireland will be invited to take part in focus groups and semi-structured interview sessions (depending on availability), and provide feedback on evolving concepts for the platform. Of particular focus will be the user-facing elements of the system, such as the headset and tablet-based suite of gamified tasks.
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
19/NI/0198
Date of REC Opinion
6 Nov 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion