Introduction to Human Brain Expo (HBE). Perspectives and Plan. Evgenia Leonova, PhD, MBA
About Evgenia Leonova, PhD, MBA: Evgenia is a founder of Innovative PPE (fire & chemical resistant garments) company – Lambda Gear, www.lambdagear.com Author of the Mental Health Management Program & Support Center – 3HBrain, www.3hbrain.com She is the author of a book about Human Brain’s Mental Health: “Healthy, Happy, Helpful.” She is managing director at Innovation Exchange Community: Elite Inventors Club. She is a former scientist with multiple published work. She worked for the main TV show dedicated to Health in Moscow, Russia. She is Founder at www.humanbrainexpo.com For more information, please, visit www.evgenialeonova.com
Susan Gibson
“Nutrition for Brain Health”
Susan Gibson is the president of Vivolor® Therapeutics and creator of Vivolor® Memory Support, has won multiple awards for her work helping people regain their lives and confidence through improved memory and brain health. Watching her mother’s devastating decline into dementia gave her passion to apply her pharmacy degree, Harvard MBA, functional nutrition certification, and 30 years’ experience developing new healthcare products to now providing education and supplements that have helped numerous clients lead full lives with clarity of mind for years to come . Susan is on a mission to help millions of people using natural solutions and encourages starting early, although these resources help at any stage of memory loss. For more information, please see:Vivolor.com and Maximize Your Memory Challenge https://memorywellnessacademy.com/
Abstract
Your brain is the most complex thing in your body and is the control center for all that you do. Your brain is ‘on’ even when you are sleeping. Although your brain is only 2% of your body weight, it uses over 20% of your nutrients. It is critical that your brain gets the fuel and nutrients it needs. We will discuss the benefits of vegetables; good oils and DHA; vitamins; supplements
And the importance of avoiding inflammatory and oxidative foods: Sugar, Processed foods, Gluten, Dairy
Eating a brain-healthy diet helps improve mood and energy, promote clear thinking and strong memory and prevent dementia. It’s essential to start early giving your brain the fuel it needs to run at its best.
Aaron Bromberg
“The neuroscience of sleep and the future of non-invasive brain stimulation”
Aaron Bromberg is the CEO of StimScience, a Berkeley neurotechnology startup focused on sleep. He has 16 years of experience launching and growing some of the most successful hardware and software product lines at Amazon, Bose, and various startups. In 2019, Aaron left Amazon to focus on products that matter. At StimScience, he works with a team of world-class neuroscientists to create groundbreaking sleep aids, and to use neuroscience to improve their mental and physical wellbeing.
Abstract
When we think of sleep, we usually think of the sleep environment – the softness of the mattress, the thread count of the sheets. But sleep is a brain activity, a series of electrical patterns that is measurable and individually unique. By reading your brain’s unique sleep signature and using safe, non-invasive electrical stimulation, we can directly increase sleep duration and quality more effectively than any sleeping pill. These advances in sleep neurotechnology point the way to a future where personalized neuroscience is used in everyday consumer devices to improve peoples’ lives.
Noah Falstein
“Power of games to inform, to teach, to change behavior, and bring entertainment to otherwise boring or unpleasant medical procedures”
A professional game developer since 1980, Falstein was among the first 10 employees at LucasArts, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He served for four years as Google’s Chief Game Designer, working closely with their AR and VR projects, leaving in 2017 to work as a designer and producer for health/games companies. He served as Senior VP of Content for Mindmaze, a Swiss unicorn creating games for rehabilitation. More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Falstein and https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamedesignexpert/
Falstein was the first elected chairman of the International Game Developers Association and has published over 100 articles and book chapters. He is currently working with diverse health/neurogaming companies including Executive Advisor to Akili Interactive, which won FDA clearance for a video game to treat pediatric ADHD and went public last year with billion-dollar valuation. Other healthcare clients of his include Abbott Labs, Healium, Apple Health, TrainPain, Dopavision, and Level Ex.
Abstract
The games industry is maturing, and in the process games and game technology are increasingly being used in the medical field for education, training, and even directly as FDA-cleared treatment. Games are informing patients, training physicians, and treating a wide variety of conditions, including ADHD, depression, myopia, chronic pain, anxiety, PTSD and many others. This session will survey some of these approaches and delve into just how and why games are changing the face of medical care.
Dr Jacqueline R Scholl
“The Listening Brain: Why our children can’t read”
Dr Scholl is the Executive Director & Head of Audiology for Sounwrx Inc and the Pediatric Director for Tuned Care.
Prior to starting Soundwrx, a 501(c)(3) organization, and becoming the Pediatric Director for Tuned Care, Scholl owned her own clinic. As founder and manager of the Scholl Center, she curated an impressive team of clinicians who changed the landscape for audiological care in Oklahoma. Scholl’s clinic was the recipient of numerous awards, and she personally continues to be noticed for her standards of exemplary care, advocacy, innovative solutions, passion, and mass-scale policy change.
Dr Scholl has practiced hearing health care for 25 years and after selling her practice in 2019, she continues to blaze trails by changing policy and providing best practice services to children across the state of Oklahoma. She is a tireless advocate for those who don’t have a voice.
Scholl earned a BS in Communication Sciences and Disorders, and her master’s in audiology from Missouri State University. She completed her doctorate in audiology at Arizona’s School of Health Sciences in Mesa, AZ. She has contributed numerous articles for national publications and frequently speaks at conferences when she’s not working on changes at the state capital.
Abstract
Children across the globe struggled to read prior to the pandemic lock down, but few were listening. Post pandemic reading scores in 2022 received more attention when the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Nation’s Report Card painted an even more dismal portrait of student proficiency. Math and reading scores continue to plummet no matter how many millions of dollars are allocated to reverse the trend. Still, no one is listening.
The hierarchy of skills required to read have been universally accepted by most specialists. Yet, poor readers struggle with the most fundamental building block of the pyramid – phonemic awareness. If the brain cannot authentically hear and reproduce sounds, a child can’t differentiate phonemes. If a child can’t read, they can’t learn. These children are misdiagnosed and therefore never receive the appropriate intervention they need. At the core, the auditory pathway is almost never screened for problems, and it’s never understood what the brain is hearing. This session will cover the underlying problem of phonemic awareness in struggling readers, why it exists, how to measure it, and offer solutions for addressing it.
Rachel Francine
“The Magical Science of the Musical Brain”
Rachel Francine is a digital pioneer and trained futurist who, starting in 1996, helped lay the tracks of the Internet as we know it, as a member of the CitySearch New Markets team. Rachel spent over 15 years transforming brick and mortar products into scalable digital solutions for companies including Cars.com, Ticketmaster, Warner Brothers Pictures, Anheuser-Busch, and Al Gore’s Current TV. Rachel subsequently earned a Master’s of Science degree in Futures Studies and Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston with a focus on Transformative Economics in order to create companies and industries that transform the health, social wellbeing and financial abundance of individuals and communities.
In 2012, Rachel co-founded Musical Health Technologies, whose debut product, SingFit PRIME, mass distributes music as medicine for the first time in history. SingFit PRIME is the winner of the USC Keck School of Medicine Body Computing prize, the AARP Innovation@50+ Award and the McKnight’s Dignity in Aging Award. Rachel is a frequent speaker on the present state and future possibilities for technology, digital health, innovation, entrepreneurship, and women in business. Rachel has spoken at conferences held by organizations as diverse as Aging into the Future, HealthXL, Ernst & Young, The World Futures Society and the Professional Golfers Association. In 2017 Rachel was named one of MedCity News’ 50+ Innovation Leaders and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Billboard Magazine.
Abstract
What if a pill could create neuro plasticity that would allow speech to be restored after a traumatic brain injury? How about if that same pill could increase the mass of the Broca’s area of the brain to release speech for people with aphasia or non-verbal autism? What if the side effects of that pill were to positively regulate the neurochemicals and hormones including serotonin oxytocin, cortisol, and dopamine to improve mood and reduce agitation for people with dementia? Sound impossible? From a pill yes, but the clinical research shows that these results and more can be achieved through the act of prescribed singing. Yet with only 10k music therapists certified to practice in the US (vs over 120 speech language pathologist), historically these benefits only reached the fortunate few. Now, technology, including the SingFit digital health platform, allows healthcare professions, unpaid caregivers, and individuals themselves to use singing as a therapeutic tool, even if they have no previous musical experience. Learn about how singing can be a womb to hospice solution for building and maintaining better brain health.
Dr. Boris Goldstein
“Neurointerfaces”
Dr. Boris Goldstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in building and leading world-class companies in AI, big data, and software development. He has founded or co-founded over 20 private companies during this time, demonstrating his ability to consistently drive success in the industry, taking some of them public.
Dr. Goldstein is the founder of High Technology (Solby Holding), a software company where he built the organization from the ground up to employ over 3,000 people with 40 offices across 17 countries. Additionally, he founded EForex, a leading online fintech company that has been acquired by ActTrader, Finavasia, and technology for forex, as well as two major crypto exchanges. He is also the founder of E-Trade Eurasia, which holds the license of E-Trade Group for the Eurasian market (later sold back to E-Trade Group).
Furthermore, Dr. Goldstein is the co-founder of Intelligent Video Systems, which eventually split to become Axxon Soft and ISS international – two leading AI video analytic and face recognition companies. He is the founder of Brain Scientific (symbol BRSF) and BrainBit, two of the world’s leading brain AI companies. He is also the founder of Ryah Group (symbol Ryah: CSE), a top AI-driven big data company focused on plant-based medicine.
Dr. Goldstein’s achievements extend beyond his entrepreneurial ventures. He serves as a director for several banks, including Daldaris (acquired by Sakaru Bank) and the Commercial Bank of San Francisco (acquired by First Bank and Trust).
Dr. Goldstein holds a B.A., MBA, and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Latvian Technical University.
BrainBit empowers individuals to understand the relationship between the brain and behavior, delivering unique insights into mind and body wellness motivating people.
With over 30 games developed and controlled by the brain, and, also, integrated into VR.
We are also working on different brain related AI applications.
Keith Kirkland
“Haptics | Why Education is the Next Frontier”
Keith Kirkland is a haptics enthusiast, accessories designer, engineer and impact-driven strategist that is deeply excited about reimagining the use of touch in design and digital communications. His work has been recognized by the Pratt’s Rowena Reed-Kostellow Award, SXSW, The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, EY, TED, Dropbox, The Yokohama Government, Beyond Bauhaus, and the MET Museum. He is a serial entrepreneur inspired by the intersection of touch, equitable business model development and nuanced customer insights to create sustainable impact-driven technologies that deliver at scale. Keith is also cofounder of WearWorks, an award-winning haptic navigation company that help the first person who is blind run the NYC marathon without sighted assistance. HapticNav™ and Wayband®, is a haptic navigation app (and optional haptic wristband) that gently navigates a person to a destination using vibrations, without the need for any visual or audio feedback.
Intro
The haptics industry was projected to be $8B in 2022. It did $9.2B. By 2030 the haptics industry is expected to grow to $23B globally. With CAGR at 11% up from the projected 8%, we are seeing an acceleration of haptic development and applications.
There are a few things driving this development. The gaming industry’s phenomenal growth (now, it is 3x larger than film and music industries combined!). Also, the drive toward VR/AR and the need for haptic feedback in virtual training and medical simulations has also pushed the development of haptics forward.
As designing with, and for, the sense of touch becomes more accessible, there is an elephant in the room: Who are the future hapticians that will fill these new roles? The educational degrees needed to fill this opportunity are mainly at the PhD and Masters level. With so few programs offered for study, how might our industry respond to support educational needs to fill these new opportunities.
Summary
One of touch’s greatest touted assets is its innate accessibility. This talk is to present a need for haptics education as one of the major opportunities to create a ubiquitous (and thoughtful) haptic future.
Kirthika Parmeswaran
“Digital Therapeutic for Postpartum Depression”
Kirthika is the Founder & CEO of Vital Start Health, a University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Innovation early-stage startup developing the first clinically guided, personalized, equitable reproductive & maternity mental health platform using Virtual Reality. She has extensive experience across business and technology in healthcare, telecommunications, and cybersecurity. She has won numerous awards and honors, including Outstanding Leadership in Healthcare award, is a DARPA award recipient and a strategic thought leader with an R&D background. Kirthika has a Master’s in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis and an Executive Master’s in Technology Management from University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Wharton School of Business. She loves to read, sing, play with her dog and volunteer for wellness initiatives in the community.
Vital Start Health, a University of Pennsylvania startup, has developed the first reproductive and maternal mental health digital therapeutic platform using Virtual Reality for personalized clinically guided care. Vital Start Health empowers moms and mental health practitioners to prevent and treat Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders more effectively, equitably, and faster using low-cost Virtual and Augmented Reality Framework that measures and personalizes care at every stage of the wellness journey. We have completed initial feasibility studies, launched platform, filed IP, won numerous awards and are currently exploring innovation pilots and partnerships.
Kazu Okuda, MD
“Brain-based personalized treatment for mental health”
Kazu Okuda, MD, is the founder and CEO of Universal Brain and is working on developing a cutting-edge neurofeedback system to establish the treatment of mental disorders.
In the psychiatry department of a university hospital, he was intensely shocked to find that the prognosis of patients varied greatly depending on the physician’s skill.
He founded Universal Brain to establish treatment and diagnosis based on the analysis of physiological data. At Universal Brain, he engages in developing an innovative EEG headset and neurofeedback algorithms to treat patients with psychiatric disorders.
After graduating from medical school at the Kyushu University and receiving clinical training at the University of Tokyo Hospital, he joined a medical device AI startup. He worked in the CEO/CFO’s office, raising funds ($20M while in office) and driving clinical research with university hospitals. The company’s product received marketing approval and reimbursement in Japan.
Universal Brain is working on cutting-edge neurofeedback systems to treat mental disorders. This enables us to prescribe personalized, at-home, and non-invasive therapy.
– Universal Brain is developing
(1) innovative portable EEG headset for use in the treatment
(2) neurofeedback algorithm for reducing the symptoms of psychiatric disorders.