Why start NERVTEX?
We humans really know very little about how the brain works ——
Over the past century, Nobel Prizes have been awarded for important discoveries in neuroscience related to the encoding and storage of information in the brain. We now have a better understanding of the brain's conduction mechanisms; we also have a good understanding of the role of different neurons and how they respond in different functions. However, our understanding is only at the level of how nerve cells process information, and we still know very little about the complex network structure of the whole brain. Questions such as how information is processed in the brain, how different sensory perceptions, emotions and some higher cognitive functions - thinking, decision making and even consciousness - are achieved, and how nerve cells are made to respond to different physical and chemical stimuli in specific situations, remain unsatisfactorily answered.
Over the past 100 years, imaging departments have had X-ray machines and magnetic resonance imaging, laboratory departments have had mass spectrometers and DNA fluorescent probes, and pathology departments have had electronic medical records and digital pathology, but none of these have helped neurologists and psychiatrists working with psychiatric and neurodegenerative brain disorders to reach an objective, accurate, convenient and well-documented conclusion in clinical care and outcome assessment.
The biggest problem in brain disease research
The most critical issue in brain disease research is that we still do not understand the mechanisms of brain dysfunction caused by psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Despite tremendous advances in neuroscience in recent decades, we are still unable to fully unravel the relationship between the spatio-temporal activity patterns of interwoven neural networks and human behaviour, cognition, emotion and other mental states. Deciphering and promoting the function and health of the brain, the body's most mysterious organ, will have major implications for science, medicine and society.
Cognitive neuroscience based on brain imaging can elucidate the underlying mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction and provide a biological framework for discovering precise biomarkers of mindfulness disorders. At the same time, recent advances in brain-like research and artificial intelligence are providing important tools for understanding the biological brain and vice versa. The development of brain-inspired computing, brain simulations and intelligent machines is therefore receiving considerable attention in EU and Chinese brain programmes.
So can computer science help us with our 'physical' and 'mental' suffering?
The answer is YES
"If only we could understand the meaning behind the act."
We launched NERVTEX to create solutions that understand the importance of human behaviour.
While computers cannot directly determine the meaning of behaviour, they can help us to record, identify, label, generalise and summarise the associations between different behaviours and disease. Conversely, in a computer-generated virtual environment, the human brain exhibits the same judgement and behavioural characteristics as in the real world, and provides timely feedback on scenarios that can be artificially adapted. Artificial intelligence and virtual reality are the most typical applications of this theory.
We believe that the ultimate solution for brain health is a combination of digital technology-driven medical devices and personalised medicine solutions, and that NERVTEX will focus on the innovation of "digital technology-driven standalone software-based medical devices", i.e. "digital therapeutics".
How computer science can solve the suffering of 'body' and 'mind'
Starting from the principle of firstness, we try to think and ask the question, what is the objective expression of human physical and mental suffering?
Our answer is Behavior.
Why can't we use the physical and biochemical means at our disposal to solve our physical and mental problems?
With approximately 3 million people worldwide living with Parkinson's disease, 23 million with schizophrenia, 50 million with dementia, 140 million with obsessive-compulsive disorder, 200 million with stroke and 300 million with at least one of anxiety and depression, brain health problems represented by mental and neurological disorders have become the leading cause of the global burden of disease.
Difficulties in accurate assessment, lack of precise interventions and difficulties in patient management are some of the main reasons why mental and neurological disorders are 'invisible'. Due to our lack of understanding of the brain itself and its pathogenesis, clinical diagnosis and assessment of brain disorders can only be made with imaging tests such as CT and MRI when there is significant structural brain damage, but for functional brain disorders such as neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, there are still no objective indicators or tools to comprehensively assess or quantify the disease process. In the treatment of psychiatric and neurodegenerative brain disorders, the uncertainty of treatment response, the need to personalise treatment protocols, to accurately preserve brain function and to manage the prognosis of treatment protocols all require better assessment and treatment tools that are easy to use, objective and sensitive.
Behavioural change, the most basic phenotypic feature of psychiatric and neurodegenerative brain disorders, remains the central mainstream clinical assessment judgement in current practice. However, today's neurological and psychiatric consultation process does not adequately address the two most fundamental issues in behavioural assessment.
1. Is the basis for assessing behaviour change clean and consistent for each assessor?
2. Is disease diagnosis based on behaviour change sufficient to distinguish the effects of disease interventions?
In fact, when it comes to these two things, the difference in medical judgement between doctors is not as great as it was a hundred years ago, and neither is complete.
If these two issues can be addressed, we will be able to greatly improve the prevention, early screening and diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as the window of intervention to achieve better outcomes with lower doses and fewer side effects, while new drug development will have access to more objective and clearer gradient assessment tools, greatly expanding our treatment options.If these two issues can be addressed, we will be able to greatly improve the prevention, early screening and diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as the window of intervention to achieve better outcomes with lower doses and fewer side effects, while new drug development will have access to more objective and clearer gradient assessment tools, greatly expanding our treatment options.
Unfortunately, we are not yet able to address these issues well in clinical practice and we need standardised and objective tools for diagnosis and treatment.Unfortunately, we are not yet able to address these issues well in clinical practice and we need standardised and objective tools for diagnosis and treatment.