There are many situations that can cause injury or impairment to the brain. These include sports concussion, traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to military explosives or munitions, and drug use, for example. In addition to brain injury and impairment, other events, such as sleep deprivation, can also cause temporary changes in impairment and cognitive performance. Another category of neurological disfunction or impairment are neurodevelopmental disorders which occur in children, such as ADHD and Autism (ASD), as well as neurobiological learning disorders such as Dyslexia. for all of these conditions, there is great interest to create portable, low cost, quantitative neurological assessment tools that can be used by doctors, medics, teachers, or in some cases, patients themselves.

Our group develops a variety of mobile assessment tools, in the form of portable biosensors (EEG, ECG, EDA + eye tracking and pupillometry) to quantitatively assess and detect neurological impairment. Some of our active projects and collaborations include:

• MIT Lincoln Laboratory to develop mobile assessment tools for concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI);
• Drug addiction and recovery (Recovery Research Institute) at Massachusetts General Hospital to develop tools to detect impairment due to substance use;
• Yoga Bharti center and S-VYASA University to study interventions for children with ADHD.

Students: Hanjie Liu, Eric Alfaro, David Burke, Ivyann Shen

Press

MIT News Article (August 25, 2025), “New Technologies Tackle Brain Health Assessment for the Military“