Vanderbilt biomedical engineering professor has developed a prototype headband to measure brain activity that could have widespread application in studying and ultimately treating ADHD and other neurological disorders.

The device is lightweight, portable, and inexpensive to construct. Prototype components cost less than $250, compared to costs exceeding $10,000 for commercial systems.

Audrey Bowden, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Hadi Hosseini, a colleague at Stanford University, set out to develop a simple device that children and teens diagnosed with attention deficit disorders could wear at home. Their initial prototype is a single-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) headband. Functional neuroimaging is a general term for technologies that spatially map brain activity over time… Continue reading.