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Brain Fatigue App

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,679
Location
Alberta
Well, it's not here yet, but UVic is working on ways to measure brain fatigue, which could be of use for us with ME.

https://www.uvic.ca/news/topics/2020+knowledge-brain-burnout+news

"The long-term goal: “To have a device that anyone can use, like a blood pressure monitor or a Fitbit, to track your brain health,” says Krigolson. This sci-fi scenario may not be too far off."
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824

Interesting. I suspect the device is going to make use of this new(ish) generation of cheap EEG brain wave-measuring headgear, such as the NeuroSky MindWave, a $99 EEG consumer device which can measure your gamma, beta, alpha, theta and delta brain waves. The headgear just plugs into a smartphone or tablet, which then shows your brain wave levels via an app.

Years ago, an EEG machine to measure brain wave levels would costs $thousands, but after all the necessary electronic circuitry was placed onto one single chip, the prices fell dramatically.


Whether sufficient information can be extracted from your brain wave characteristics to detect fatigued mental states in an accurate and useful way, however, remains to be seen; but it appears that they have had success:
What surprised the research team was that of the more than 2,500 people they’ve monitored so far across multiple occupations, few were able to accurately assess their own fatigue levels—many of whom exhibited brain states equivalent to being legally impaired. The current gold standard is to literally ask, “Are you too tired to work?” Clearly, that’s inadequate, he says. “Providing an objective way to measure that is going to save lives.”
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,679
Location
Alberta
There were many times that I wished I had a reliable readout of my symptoms: pain, lethargy, etc. ME probably worsens our already bad ability to judge such things. Having a device of at least improved reliability would help with determining if some factor is affecting our ME.

Imagine wearing a few sensors feeding into a smartphone, as you go about your daily activities, occasionally entering in 'cup of coffee and donut' or 'stuck chatting with boss'. Meanwhile, an app keeps track of everything and does statistical analysis, giving you a nice summary of 'carrots reduce your mental lethargy 14% <graph of lethargy vs time>' or 'Accessing Facebook in the evening reduces sleep quality 28%'. This would, of course, be accompanied by lengthy arguments by people whose theories aren't supported by the results, plus lawsuits from Facebook or whomever. :rolleyes:

Hmmm, I can see this sort of data collection becoming part of drug testing, to be used, misused and abused by pharmaceutical companies and alternative health purveyors.