Cognitive fitness simulator developed by UNN scientists
Lobachevsky University scientists have developed a digital platform called Cognitom. It is designed to provide diagnostics and individualised training for patients with stroke consequences, drug addiction, attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder and autism in children.
The research has already involved more than 40 thousand persons. The simulator can become a working tool for neuropsychologists for objective and accurate assessment of human cognitive functions. The system evaluates brain performance by the speed of decision-making, the quantity and quality of the subject's errors.
"Our platform tracks brain performance and changes in the brain at different stages of rehabilitation with millisecond accuracy. The system includes a cognitive simulator that contains more than 100 templates for assessing and 'boosting' brain performance. We can tailor a personalised set of training sessions for different conditions. For example, we can determine a child's readiness for school, identify missing cognitive functions and also 'train' the brain to the necessary level by forming new neural networks in it. This is a real cognitive fitness", shared the author of the study Sofia Polevaya, Head of the Department of Psychophysiology at the UNN Faculty of Social Sciences.
The Nizhny Novgorod scientists' approach is based on analysing data on human sensory and logical thinking and their balance. To assess the quality of sensory and verbal-logical information processing, psychophysiologists at Lobachevsky University used the Stroop test and its original modifications: the subject determines colour not only by the meaning of a word or by the colour of letters. The authors supplemented the test with new tasks, in which words denoting colours are given in an unfamiliar or completely invented language. This makes it possible to determine the participant's cognitive potential in recognising new images and his or her ability to learn.
Heart rhythm telemetry was monitored in 600 experiment participants during the test in order to diagnose the emotional state of the subjects and to assess the energy consumption by the human body to maintain cognitive processes.
Based on these data, scientists are going to develop a calculator of emotional burnout to determine the working capacity of people against the background of their nervous tension.
"Together with Lobachevsky University mathematicians, we are working on a model for diagnosing a person's functional state. With its help, we will be able to see who is normal and who is 'burnt out' and works with his or her last resources. In case of nervous exhaustion a person will be rehabilitated on a cognitive simulator. This is especially important in megacities and in the conditions of intensive mental labour," said Sofia Polevaya.
Test kits for monitoring the functional state of the brain have already been used by UNN scientists in their studies at the Volga District Medical Centre of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia and at the Semashko Nizhny Novgorod Regional Clinical Hospital.
The research is conducted by the UNN Department of Psychophysiology in cooperation with the Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence at the UNN Institute of Information Technology, Mathematics and Mechanics as well as the UNN Institute of Aging Biology, with the participation of scientists from the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
