Dubai: School students invent tech to read brain activity in schizophrenics

Dubai: School students invent tech to read brain activity in schizophrenics

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Four students from a Dubai school won a global competition for inventing a headband that reads brain activity in patients of schizophrenia.

The 10th graders Sana Azhar, Eman Fatima, Amna Qureishi and Ghania Ahmed from Pristine Private School outperformed 450 students from 38 schools in the UAE DigiInventors Challenge 2021, held by Scotland's Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre in association with Glasgow Warriors. The competition aims to encourage youth from Scotland and UAE to develop creative ideas for physical and mental health challenges.

The winning all-girls team developed the headband, equipped with electrodes and sensors, to detect unusual electrical signals coming from the sensory cortex. The headband then alerts the user and their doctor of a hallucination episode via an app.

Besides helping patients become aware of schizophrenic episodes, the app helps doctors monitor their patients' condition and provide timely medications.

"Mental health remains stigmatized in our modern society. We wanted to contribute to people whose voices are not heard, such as schizophrenia patients who go through their struggles alone," said Ghania.

In severe episodes, the headband also has an emergency button that alerts the doctor and the patient's close family with a click.

Globally, 20 million people are diagnosed with schizophrenia, a brain disease