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Project teams led by Associate Professor Melanie Fleming and Professor Ben Seymour have been awarded funding from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to advance research that could unlock next-generation precision neurotechnologies.

Human brain digital illustration. Electrical activity, flashes and lightning on a blue background.

ARIA’s new Precision Neurotechnologies programme will unite the frontiers of engineered biology and hardware to treat many of the most complex and devastating brain disorders affecting individuals and communities worldwide.

Researchers from the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, also working as part of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (OH BRC), will lead two of the teams receiving funding as part of the 'Future Adoption' workstream. These projects will explore how neurotechnologies can be designed inclusively, recognising the importance of engaging clinicians and people with lived experiences of brain disorders for greater, more equitable adoption of future tech.

A team led by Associate Professor Melanie Fleming, with co-investigators from Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and University College London, aims to overcome barriers to translation of brain stimulation technologies for patient care. By seeking input from patients and the public as well as clinicians, researchers, ethicists, and industry experts, the team will develop a roadmap of recommendations that can be used to develop, improve and implement brain stimulation technologies for conditions such as stroke, depression and dementia.

Professor Ben Seymour’s team brings together researchers from Oxford’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Services, as well as Warwick Business School, to develop a new tool for predicting patient preferences and possible uptake of interventional neurotechnologies.

Predicting adoption of any new health intervention is essential for planning and prioritising investment in future clinical research. The team will work with people with lived experience to co-design and develop the tool, based on designing a hypothetical gamified health market in which people think in depth about how they would trade-off health outcomes against other commodities. They can then show how this can be embedded within health economic modelling to better guide funding, investment and prioritisation decisions.

 

Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences website. 

Related news: Professor Dame Molly Stevens will lead research teams contributing to ARIA’s new Precision Neurotechnologies initiative