Company Profile:
Oculogica
Oculogica Inc. is developing eye tracking based neurodiagnostics with a focus on brain injury. Its proprietary EyeBoxCNS eye-tracking technology is performed while someone watches television-type content, and works by assessing function of the nerves that move the eye and mediate vision. These nerves receive inputs from more than half the brain and are also strategically located to detect subtle changes in pressure in various compartments of the skull. Impaired conjugacy of eye movements (the inability of the eyes to move together or “verge”) has long been associated with concussion and is revealed by the EyeBox. The pattern of eye movement disruption creates a signature that can be used to localize the injury and assess its severity. The eye-tracking algorithm is rapid (<4 minutes), non-invasive, objective, and does not require a common language or high degree of subject cooperation. After eye tracking, data is sent to the cloud where it is processed, then sent back to the local EyeBox for interpretation. Unlike imaging studies, which reveal what the brain looks like anatomically, eye tracking tells us how well it functions physiologically. Additional potential applications include assessment of hydrocephalus, elevated intracranial pressure and dementia among other neurologic and ophthalmic disorders.
Q: Please tell us how your business idea was conceived. Was there an "aha" moment or did it evolve gradually?
A: Oculogica’s technological discovery was serendipitous. While performing a
clinical trial to improve outcomes from severe brain injury,
neurosurgeon Uzma Samadani needed a measure to quantitate improvement in
vegetative trauma patients. Her laboratory developed an eye-tracking
algorithm that hoped to capture how well people tracked action moving on
a television screen to see if their eye movements were deliberate and
purposeful.
Dr. Samadani was surprised to discover on February 10, 2012, that eye movements were abnormal in people who had swelling (mass effect) in the brain. She would later realize that the technology could detect specific weaknesses of the nerves that move the eyes and thus problems could be mapped to locations within the brain. In August 2012, she realized eye tracking could detect brain injury not seen on radiographic imaging (concussion) because it quantitates how well the brain functions, rather than just how it looks.
Dr. Samadani was surprised to discover on February 10, 2012, that eye movements were abnormal in people who had swelling (mass effect) in the brain. She would later realize that the technology could detect specific weaknesses of the nerves that move the eyes and thus problems could be mapped to locations within the brain. In August 2012, she realized eye tracking could detect brain injury not seen on radiographic imaging (concussion) because it quantitates how well the brain functions, rather than just how it looks.
Q: What's the most inventive, innovative, or disruptive aspect of your initiative?
A: Oculogica’s first disruptive aspect is that EyeBox may serve as a proxy
for physical examination in trauma patients. It provides an "exam" that
is rapid, can be automated and performed remotely, and does not require a
trained examiner.
Next, the EyeBox has the potential to drastically reduce unnecessary CT scanning of trauma patients, saving them from radiation exposure and expediting the flow of patients through the Emergency Room. In 97 percent of normal people, the eyes move together in near lock step through complex mechanisms that are hard-wired deep in the brain. People with brain injury have long been known to have imperfectly coordinated eye movements and EyeBox quantitates these.
Objective quantification of brain injury will not only change the way brain injury is diagnosed but also potentially change how it is defined. There are currently 42 different definitions for concussion. In its most disruptive aspect, the EyeBox aspires to be the gold standard for concussion diagnosis and a central component of how it is defined.
Next, the EyeBox has the potential to drastically reduce unnecessary CT scanning of trauma patients, saving them from radiation exposure and expediting the flow of patients through the Emergency Room. In 97 percent of normal people, the eyes move together in near lock step through complex mechanisms that are hard-wired deep in the brain. People with brain injury have long been known to have imperfectly coordinated eye movements and EyeBox quantitates these.
Objective quantification of brain injury will not only change the way brain injury is diagnosed but also potentially change how it is defined. There are currently 42 different definitions for concussion. In its most disruptive aspect, the EyeBox aspires to be the gold standard for concussion diagnosis and a central component of how it is defined.
Q: How will it help people live to their greatest potential or contribute to making the world healthier?
A: By quantitating the extent of brain injury regardless of whether it can
be seen on imaging studies, Oculogica will bring objectivity to the
diagnosis of concussion. Currently misdiagnosed concussion patients may
return to work or play while impaired, reinjuring themselves and
potentially causing greater and more persistent harm to themselves and
to others. Very little can be understood about the long-term
consequences of concussion without an objective diagnostic for the
condition.
Oculogica’s technology enables testing of therapeutics and prophylactics for both visible brain injury and concussion. Current concussion diagnostics are subjective, require baselines that can be manipulated, and are sometimes operator dependent. The existence of a valid outcome measure may even change the way sports are played. For example, EyeBox used in conjunction with helmet sensors for football players could yield information about which hits cause the most damage and rules could then be changed to reduce these.
Oculogica’s technology enables testing of therapeutics and prophylactics for both visible brain injury and concussion. Current concussion diagnostics are subjective, require baselines that can be manipulated, and are sometimes operator dependent. The existence of a valid outcome measure may even change the way sports are played. For example, EyeBox used in conjunction with helmet sensors for football players could yield information about which hits cause the most damage and rules could then be changed to reduce these.
Q: Five years from now, what would you like to be able to say has been your most important contribution to health?
A: Oculogica hopes that by changing the way brain injury is diagnosed, and
potentially even defined, it will be able to make treatment a
possibility for the millions of patients who suffer a brain injury every
year. Currently, these individuals go from doctor to doctor and test to
test in the vain hope that someone will find something wrong that can
be fixed. Insomnia, depression, anxiety, and poor cognition are the
insult added to injury when study after study fails to reveal anything
wrong. While families will rally around someone with cancer or a birth
defect, brain injury provokes guilt, shame, and a sense that it must
“all be in their head” which ironically is true, though not as the
cliché suggests. By bringing objective recognition to a condition that
even some doctors dismiss as purely psychiatric, Oculogica hopes to
change the culture of brain injury as a disease.
Q: What single word or phrase best describes the culture of your startup and why?
A: Our name, Oculogica, comes from the Latin "oculus" for eye and "logic"
for “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of
validity” or “a system or set of principles underlying the arrangement
of elements in a computer or electronic device so as to perform a
specified task.” Oculogica applies the classical to a modern logical
context: These definitions describe not only our technology, but also
our culture. We wish to disrupt the diagnosis and management of brain
injury by systematically introducing a better, quantitative, and more
objective technology.
By treating brain injury as a quantifiable disease, and enabling rigorous development of treatments, we hope to bring logic to where none currently exists: to the corner of the hospital set aside for those whom no one can help. To the brain injured, who will finally be treated as if they actually have a disease.
By treating brain injury as a quantifiable disease, and enabling rigorous development of treatments, we hope to bring logic to where none currently exists: to the corner of the hospital set aside for those whom no one can help. To the brain injured, who will finally be treated as if they actually have a disease.