Dad’s Quest to Aid Son Leads to Stroke-Recovery Technology
John Jeffay via Israel21c – BRAIN.Q helmet’s tailored, low-intensity, low-frequency electromagnetic stimulation aims to enhance and accelerate the brain’s recovery after stroke.
Yaron Segal has, like many thousands of enterprising Israelis, identified a problem.
And like so many in a country driven by technological innovation, he’s established a startup to find a solution.
But he’s not so interested in the payday “exit” that attracts most entrepreneurs in the Startup Nation.
His ultimate goal is to find a treatment for his son Lear, born 23 years ago born with familial dysautonomia, a rare and progressive genetic neurological disorder.
Segal is not an obvious candidate for the job. He trained as a physicist, specializing in climate, satellites, and three-dimensional models of the atmosphere.
But when Lear was diagnosed at the age of three months, Segal decided that he would devote his energy, passion and intellect to finding an effective treatment.
Remarkable discoveries
He isn’t there yet, but in the long – and often frustrating – process of trying, he has made some remarkable discoveries about the brain’s ability to repair itself, and has developed a treatment that has the potential to help stroke patients live more independent lives.
Segal is confident that the same technology will, at some point in the future, also benefit people living with depression, PTSD, ADHD, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries and other brain-related conditions … and familial dysautonomia.
His noninvasive, cloud-based “brainwave helmet” activates a low-intensity electromagnetic field around the patient’s head.
In clinical trials with stroke patients, it was demonstrated the treatment significantly improved outcomes in the treated group compared to the control group.
It is believed that the investigational technology device encourages the growth of new links between brain cells – links that can get broken by a trauma, or in the case of familial dysautonomia, never existed in the first place.
BRAIN.Q, the startup Segal cofounded in 2016, now has 25 staff in Israel and the USA and has attracted $50 million in funding.
The crazy guy
Segal was, as he puts it, “the crazy guy” who became convinced that the adult brain was capable, with encouragement, of repairing itself. Not completely, but significantly. His theory flew in the face of received medical wisdom.
“Neuroplasticity” is the brain’s ability to change and adapt throughout a person’s life and reorganize its structure, functions and connections in response to new experiences, learning or environmental changes.
But that couldn’t happen fully in damaged parts of the brain where there is no neural activity – until Segal’s breakthrough.
He started experimenting in 2010, funded by friends and family, and within two years he’d shown that mice and rats could, with an early form of his treatment, learn to walk and function again after suffering a brain injury or a broken spinal cord.
A potential investor showed the raw data from Segal’s experiment to an expert, who simply refused to accept it was possible. The dismissive response, Segal recalls, was: “I don’t believe it happened. You cannot revive links between cells.”
Segal was disappointed but not dismayed. The next step was to test his breakthrough on humans.
Faster recovery
In a clinical trial conducted in India, stroke patients received the BRAIN.Q therapy using an earlier version of the device for 45 minutes a day, for two months.
“The data points to faster recovery of the treated group, indicating that BRAIN.Q’s treatment may not only improve the overall recovery after stroke, but also shorten the recovery period. We hope to test this hypothesis in our ongoing clinical trial,” says Segal.
“Some recovered dramatically in the first month, some in the second, depending on how injured the brain was.
“People regained everyday function so that they didn’t need help with eating or changing clothes or bathing.
“After two months of treatment someone who couldn’t move their legs and was in a wheelchair could walk. Sometimes with a stick, but they could walk.”
Tools to fix the problem
Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability worldwide. BRAIN.Q’s treatment reduces disability and enhances the potential for recovery.
“We are affecting the brain directly, but in a non-invasive manner,” says Segal. “We are affecting the ability of the brain to regenerate connections between cells.
“I don’t want to push the brain to do something that it can’t do by itself. I want to harness its natural pattern of waves,” he explains.
“You can take a tow truck and drive your broken car all around the city. But I want to take it to the mechanic who will use simple tools and fix the problem.”
How did he feel when he saw how the first patients had recovered?
“I wanted to cry,” he says. He goes on to relate the story of a woman in Israel who suffered a spinal cord injury in a car crash and has regained control of her legs and bowels, thanks to BRAIN.Q.
And there are many more examples. BRAIN.Q, based at the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus in Jerusalem, is now conducting trials of the investigational device at patients’ homes after they’ve been discharged from the hospital.
“In the beginning I was the CEO because there was nobody else in the company,” says Segal. “Then I became the chief technical officer and now I’m chief of innovation because I think this is where I’m doing the best work I can do.”
Can he help his son?
Although his son Lear’s diagnosis set him on this journey, Segal eventually honed in on treating strokes because, in neurological terms, they are less complex than familial dysautonomia (also known as Riley-Day syndrome).
Familial dysautonomia, particularly prevalent among individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, affects the autonomic nervous system that controls involuntary bodily functions such as breathing, swallowing, digestion, tear production and muscle stability.
Lear doesn’t have natural tears, can’t drink liquids, has to eat condensed food, and needs to be held while attempting to walk. In addition, he had spinal fusion surgery at the age of 10.
“The most serious situation is when he is in crisis, meaning that whenever he has stress, his autonomic nervous system tries to balance his blood pressure, temperature and chemical balance, and fails. His body goes into ‘panic’ conditions, very similar to those when a normal person is bitten by a snake — he starts to vomit, his blood pressure skyrockets, his temperature increases,” Segal says.
“The only way to help him is using medication that brings his autonomic nervous system to a halt, causing it to reset and resume normal operation.”
Segal is hopeful that, in time, BRAIN.Q will find a way to re-grow neural links in people with this condition. Meanwhile, he is gratified that the technology can aid stroke patients.
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