TITLE : Cortical - Cortical Interactions and Sensory Information Processing in Autism

A large number of neurological disorders (neurodegenerative, neurodevelopmental or trauma induced) are difficult to diagnose or assess, thus limiting treatment efficacy. Existing solutions and products for this need are costly, extremely slow, often invasive, and in many cases fail to definitively (and quantitatively) diagnose or assess treatment. Our innovative low-cost sensory testing device non-invasively assesses the central nervous system (CNS) health status in minutes for numerous patient populations that are currently difficult to diagnose or assess. Based on pilot data (currently an ontological database of over 500 subjects), the system can be used to enable clinicians to have a much better view of a patient’s CNS health status. The diagnostic system delivers a battery of sensory based (tactile) tests that are conducted rapidly – much like an eye exam with verbal feedback – and are designed around the concept of measuring how much the CNS is impacted by a particular neurological disorder. Design and validation of the perceptual metrics was/is accomplished via correlative studies that compare non-invasive observations of human sensory percepts with non-human primate neurophysiological studies.