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Motif Neurotech wins UK award to create a brain-computer interface

Motif Neurotech wins UK award to create a brain-computer interface

Technology News |
By Jean-Pierre Joosting



Motif Neurotech, a Houston-based neurotechnology company, has won a multimillion dollar UK Government award from the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) for the development of a therapeutic brain-computer interface (BCI) to treat cognitive and psychiatric conditions.

The brain-computer interface award will fund development of a network of neural devices designed to monitor and regulate mental and cognitive states without brain surgery and is part of the ARIA Precision Neurotechnologies program, led by program director Jacques Carolan.

“This funding will allow us to accelerate our efforts to develop a general-purpose platform capable of accurately monitoring and regulating mental and cognitive states,” said Jacob Robinson, CEO of Motif Neurotech. “The brain is an electrical organ. We believe that mental and cognitive disorders will be best treated by interacting with the brain in its native language.”

The brain-computer interface technology developed with this funding is expected to have a profound impact on the treatment of cognitive, neurological, and psychiatric conditions by helping to regulate brain states associated with mood, attention, and sleep. Part of this award will focus on making the technology more accessible to patients by designing implantation to be simple, rapid, and low risk. This work will also focus on improving the specificity of brain stimulation by targeting specific cell types, which could lead to more effective treatments with fewer side effects.

The brain-computer interface consists of a network of millimeter-sized wireless implants placed in the skull during a 20-minute procedure and designed to be cosmetically invisible. Without contacting the brain, each device will provide cell-type specific stimulation and electrical recording. Arrays like these could span the entire cortical surface, enabling regulation of brain-wide circuits in a way that meets the needs of each patient.

Motif Neurotech will collaborate with research partners under this grant to develop the technology. MintNeuro, a UK startup, will help develop custom integrated circuits that will help to miniaturize the implants. Kaiyuan Yang, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Rice University will help design circuits for efficient wireless data and power transfer. The Robinson Lab at Rice University will support system integration and testing. Valentin Dragoi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice, the Rosemary and Daniel J. Harrison III Presidential Distinguished Chair in Neuroprosthetics at Houston Methodist and professor of neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College will lead the preclinical animal studies.

ARIA is an R&D funding agency created to unlock technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone. Created by an Act of Parliament and sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, ARIA funds teams of scientists and engineers to pursue research at the edge of what is scientifically and technologically possible.

Image: Proprietary miniaturized battery free bioelectronics from Motif allow for implantation in a 20 minute outpatient procedure.

www.motifneuro.tech

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