URMC utilizes motion capture technology to study brain, how it ages

Rochester, N.Y. – From Hollywood to Healthcare: Technology used to make movies is being used at the University of Rochester Medical Center to help scientists understand the brain and how it ages.

What researchers learn could help predict a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

13WHAM watched researchers in the Mobile Brain Body Imaging – or MoBi – Lab attach wires to a cap covered in electrodes. The cap picks up the brain wave activity of a volunteer, while infrared cameras surrounding him pick up how his body moves on a treadmill.

This lab is one of 12 around the world combining motion capture technology with brain scans used in real time.

“What we’re saying is: Let’s get people up, let’s get them in a walking situation where they’re solving a task, where we can kind of stress them a bit, and then we can ask, ‘How’s the brain working under duress?’ explained Dr. John Foxe, director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. “And that gives us a window into function, maybe like a neural stress test, akin to the cardiac stress test.”

Armed with that information, doctors hope to one day be able to predict a person’s dementia risk a decade before symptoms show up. It can also help give us clues about a person’s risk of falling as they get older.

“We all see it,” said Dr. Foxe. “In certain folks, as they get older, you start to worry about them. You can see their gait and posture is deteriorating, and you know that they’re not as sharp, that they’re not able to flip their mind from one task to the other.”

He added, “The number one killer of people over the age of 65 in the U.S. is falls, not heart disease or cancer. Those are very important issues, but simply falling down, and you end up in the hospital, you end up with a secondary infection; we all know this story.”

But the story doesn’t have to end that way. The work being done is still very much experimental, but researchers feel confident the information could – within a decade, possibly – end up at a doctor’s office near you.

The technology will also help doctors understand other conditions, like autism and Parkinson’s. The hope is that, one day, this technology will be wearable, so patients won’t have to go into a lab.

Researchers are looking for volunteers. If you’re interested, call 275-1674.