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What has the ATTRACT seed funding enabled you to do so far?

The seed funding for the epilepsy diagnosis project was a true blessing for the research continuation of an important but non-funded challenge on mitigating a neglected brain disorder. Global health-related problems are generally difficult to fund. The ATTRACT-funded work establishes a foundation for solving a serious health care problem in a resource-poor setting.

 What challenges have you faced so far?

The prediction-based modelling, with deep learning, is based on large-scale clinically collected brain signals. These data are of high quality and have high signal-to-noise data. For validation purposes we recently also collected 84 recordings in rural Nigeria using a wearable EEG device. The much lower signal quality is a challenge for the generalisability of the model. However, with a new sampling scheme we are currently making the predictive values more robust and reliable.

Where does your ATTRACT journey go from here?

Precision neurology/psychiatry is on the rise. We strongly believe that several minutes of raw brain recordings will be sufficient to use in global mental health initiatives and may inspire other telemedicine solutions.

Sum up in two sentences the advantages of the ATTRACT Programme over other research funding schemes.

The high-risk high gain characteristic of the ATTRACT funding scheme, combined with its broad focus, fills a gap in technology-assisted global health research.

For more information

Visit the BREEDING project site