BlinkLab

Princeton, NJ

An app that turns an ordinary mobile phone into a device for conducting objective neurobehavioral tests could make it easier and more cost-effective to diagnose neurological disorders. The BlinkLab smartphone application enables remote neurobehavioral testing in children and adults to help diagnose and monitor neurological disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. The app can also be used in neuroscience and psychology research to study fundamental mechanisms underlying learning and memory formation. Until now, these tests have required dedicated hardware in a permanent lab environment with substantial face-to-face interaction between researcher and participant. The new app is user-friendly, especially for infants and autistic patients since no face attachments are needed. The BlinkLab smartphone app allows performance of neurobehavioral tests remotely using the user’s own cell phone. Anyone can do the tests by themselves at home following the user-friendly instructions provide by the app. Experiments can be programmed by the healthcare professionals or researchers and selected from a list on the smartphone by the user. Data acquired with BlinkLab can be securely shared with healthcare professionals or researchers During a typical evaluation, the user will watch an entertaining movie or play a simple video game on the smartphone, while the smartphone delivers short auditory and visual stimuli in specific patterns. A test takes about 10-20 minutes. Using state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms, BlinkLab will measure the motor and emotional responses of the user to these stimuli. For most experiments, the main focus will be on eye movements and eye blinks. BlinkLab provides a behavioral readout using machine-vision algorithms, which can be used to characterize specific movements at video frames.