Detecting Tiny Tremors
Success factors
The BRM2 Brain Monitor marketed by BrainZ Instruments.
While there have been advances with computer-based monitors around the world, Mr MacDonald believes his researchers and engineers have done a better job. With the BRM2 Brain Monitor you can move between parts of the electronic read-out, and process and reprocess the data in various ways.
Older EEG monitors have 64 or 32 channels, and require an expert EEG technician to set them up. It took time and training to place 32 electrodes on a baby’s head quickly and without interfering with other nursing functions.
Mr MacDonald says there are risks associated with newlyemerging United States-based models that operate on a single channel. “The brain is very complex; left and right sides can have independent damage, and a single channel can miss some of the asymmetries. We think a minimum of two channels is required, and a third channel can check those asymmetries we are seeing in about 10 percent of babies.”
The company’s three-channel device requires minimal training to operate. And where a typical monitoring system might cost around $100,000, the BRM2 is available for $20,000. Their affordability, compactness and ease of use mean these devices can be used to monitor around the clock so as not to miss important signs and trends in brain activity.
After local success with the monitor, an opportunity to tap into the offshore market came from a paediatric neurologist, Associate Professor Terrie Inder, who had moved to Melbourne from Christchurch. She had advised BrainZ Instruments through much of the original research and is still on its scientific advisory board.
She spread the word about the EEG monitor among clinicians in Australia, opening doors for the device there, and is now doing likewise in the United States.
The key to commercial acceptance was not a single breakthrough but a combination of factors including hardware, software, the portable design, and sensors that could more easily be attached to babies’ heads. The company’s brainwave not only delivered a simpler approach for electrode placement but a very sticky hydrogel that ensured they stayed in place.
“It’s been a combination of very fortunate circumstances, including the physiological work that was already being done in the tertiary hospital here, right through to the fact that we have a very good incubator in Tru-Test,” says Mr MacDonald.
