DARPA

There's a high incidence of mental illness reported among soldiers compared with the general population -- in fact, one in nine medical discharges is due to mental illness, according to US Army statistics. This is not surprising. If you ask people to see and do horrific things, it will likely impact them in pretty significant ways.

DARPA is seeking to understand more about how the brain works in hopes of developing effective therapies for troops and veterans. It has announced a new $70 million project called the Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (Subnets).

Subnets is inspired by Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS, a surgical treatment that involves implanting a brain pacemaker in the patient's skull to interfere with brain activity and help with symptoms of diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's. DARPA's device will be similar, but rather than targeting one specific symptom, it will be able to monitor and analyze data in real time and issue a specific intervention according to brain activity.

"If Subnets is successful, it will advance neuropsychiatry beyond the realm of dialogue-driven observations and resultant trial and error and into the realm of therapy driven by quantifiable characteristics of neural state," DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez said. "Subnets is a push toward innovative, informed, and precise neurotechnological therapy to produce major improvements in quality of life for service members and veterans who have very few options with existing therapies. These are patients for whom current medical understanding of diseases like chronic pain or fatigue, unmanageable depression or severe post-traumatic stress disorder can't provide meaningful relief."

DARPA will collate data from volunteers seeking treatment for unrelated neurological disorders as well as clinical research participants to construct models of how the brain behaves in normal and impaired conditions, with a focus on post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, borderline personality disorder, general anxiety disorder, traumatic brain injury, substance abuse/addiction, and fibromyalgia/chronic pain. It hopes to have its device ready in five years.

"We're talking about a whole systems approach to the brain, not a disease-by-disease examination of a single process or a subset of processes," Sanchez said. "Subnets is going to be a cross-disciplinary, expansive team effort, and the program will integrate and build upon historical DARPA research investments."

(Source: Crave Australia)