Latest news with #epilepsy
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- Health
- News.com.au
Compumedics' dual-helmet brain tech hits a nerve in China's neuroscience boom
China Brain Project rolls out neuro-AI push Compumedics dual-helmet MEG lights up Tianjin labs ASX health stocks surge deeper into China A few years back, China kicked off what might be one of the most ambitious science missions you've never heard of: the China Brain Project. This is a full-scale national effort to figure out how the brain works, fix what goes wrong when it doesn't, and use all that insight to build the next generation of artificial intelligence. Launched in September 2021, the project strings together 59 headline studies, backed by about RMB 3.2 billion ($680 million) under a framework cheerfully called 'one body, two wings.' The 'body' focuses on fundamental neuroscience, how we learn, think, feel and remember. One 'wing' tackles brain disorders like epilepsy, autism and dementia, aiming to improve diagnosis and treatment. The other 'wing' is all about brain-inspired tech: building machines that mimic how humans learn and adapt, rather than just crunching data the old-fashioned way. But to get from elegant theory to real-world breakthroughs, scientists need to see the brain in action. Not just its structure, but its split-second activity as thoughts, memories and decisions light up the neurons. That's where brain imaging comes in. MRI gives you high-res still shots of the brain's anatomy – useful, but static. MEG, or magnetoencephalography, is the opposite: it captures the brain in motion, recording real-time electrical activity down to the millisecond. MEG listens to the brain's own magnetic murmurs, but legacy systems come with two big drawbacks. One-size-fits-adults helmets leave a child's head rattling around like a pea in a tin, so the sensors sit too far from the brain and the signal fizzles. Even worse, most MEG systems burn through liquid helium to keep the sensors cold. And when that coolant runs low, the whole scanner has to shut down until a refill arrives, usually in the form of a specialised delivery, which isn't always quick or easy. China's new brain labs wanted something nimbler. Enter an Australian outsider. Compumedics lands world-first dual-helmet MEG Compumedics (ASX:CMP), a med-tech company based in Melbourne, spent nearly ten years developing a new kind of MEG system with its research partners at Korea's KRISS institute. The result is the Orion LifeSpan, a scanner that holds two helmets, one for adults and one for children, inside a single cooling chamber (called a dewar). It uses advanced, patented sensors known as DROS-SQUIDs to pick up the brain's magnetic signals with high precision. Unlike older systems that need constant helium refills, Orion recycles almost all its coolant, so it can keep running around the clock without shutting down. It also has a 'hyperscanning' mode, which can record the brain activity of two people at the same time. That's useful, for example, if you're studying how a child's brain interacts with their parent's during a shared task. Tianjin Normal University (TJNU) secured the first Orion in late 2024. After months of tests, the university gave formal acceptance and called it the most advanced MEG lab on the planet. 'The Orion LifeSpan MEG recently installed by Compumedics at TJNU has been a revolution in our ability to study mental processes of both children and adults, or even the two simultaneously," said Vice-President Professor Xuejun Bai. 'The system has already proven itself to be extremely sensitive, accurate and reliable.' TJNU researchers sat a four-year-old under the Orion LifeSpan MEG and fed 200 quick tones into one ear, while the scanner captured her brain's magnetic response. With the paediatric helmet snug to her scalp, the auditory peaks popped up about 90 milliseconds after each beep – clear, high-amplitude waveforms that lit the display like a studio-grade equaliser. Then the team simply rotated Orion's dual-helmet dewar to bring the adult dome into place, and ran the exact same test. This time the signals barely rose above the noise floor; the larger helmet kept the sensors centimetres farther from her brain, and most of the field strength bled away before it reached the coils. That side by side comparison, all on a single machine, delivered what Compumedics later called 'the first time a single MEG system had given high-quality scans for both children and adults.' Compumedics has proven that shortening the brain-to-sensor gap and boosting the signal-to-noise ratio can unlock the precision that paediatric neurology has long been waiting for. China's brain labs line up The TJNU showcase set off a modest domino run. Tsinghua University signed on, a second Tianjin facility followed, and Hangzhou Normal University ordered its own Orion LifeSpan package. The four contracts total roughly $20 million, with Hangzhou's unit slated for delivery in early 2026. Compumedics isn't claiming to own the market; it's simply first out of the blocks. MEG scanners are still rare in China compared with the country's vast MRI fleet, and Orion's dual-helmet design halves both the hardware bill and the room it needs, exactly the kind of maths provincial governments like as they race to build new neuroscience centres. None of it turns Compumedics into a household name overnight, but it does explain why four Chinese universities have already signed purchase orders. And as the China Brain Project accelerates, the real-time windows provided by MEG are likely to move from niche to mainstream. China becomes launchpad for ASX health plays With its sheer scale, ageing population and a government rolling out the red carpet for cutting-edge medical tech, China has become a proving ground that's increasingly hard for ASX health outfits to ignore. Compumedics isn't the only Aussie med-tech with serious skin in the China game. Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX), for instance, is running several China-based Phase III registration studies. The ZIRCON-CP trial of its kidney-cancer imaging agent TLX250-CDx is being conducted at Beijing Cancer Hospital and other leading oncology centres, in conjunction with strategic partner Grand Pharmaceutical Group. The first Chinese patient was dosed late-2024, and the study remains active in 2025. Cochlear (ASX:COH) continues its three-decade clinical presence in China. In June, the company launched its Nucleus Nexa smart implant within the Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone, a government-sanctioned hospital hub that fast-tracks novel devices and collects clinical evidence for mainland approval. EZZ Life Science (ASX:EZZ), meanwhile, has quietly pulled off one of the sharpest China plays on the ASX, turning a niche Aussie wellness brand into a breakout star. In FY24, revenue surged 79% to $66.4 million, with a clean $10.4 million in EBITDA and zero debt on the books. And 80% of that cash came straight out of Greater China, thanks to a killer e-commerce strategy across Douyin, Tmall, Kuaishou and O'Mall, where its anti-ageing pills and children growth chews have become chart-toppers. Parents in China can't get enough of EZZ's kids' range, and the company just dropped a fresh $21 million deal to push into Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Compumedics and EZZ Life Science are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Health
- BBC News
West Hanney man's brain tumour grew 'for more than a decade'
"I woke up eventually to what looked like two green aliens."When Charlie Broadhurst went to bed early with a mild sickness bug and a tingling in his lip in January 2022 he was actually woken by paramedics in their green married father-of-two from West Hanney had experienced a seizure and was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in was referred to an epilepsy clinic, but unbeknown to everyone he had a brain tumour, and doctors had already missed it. Previously Charlie had been experiencing headaches, but following an MRI scan in 2011 he was told it was a sinus infection, though he was advised to visit his optician."I kind of left it and when I did have a headache made sure I was wearing my glasses a little bit more," he tells the the seizure in 2022 he was booked in for another MRI."They were quite confident there was nothing to worry about, and then I got the phone call about six weeks later that there was something to worry about," he was diagnosed with a grade II astrocytoma, a brain tumour that had been visible on a CT scan in 2011, and had grown undetected for more than a decade."The hospital were very quick and honest," Charlie explains."It was very small and they admitted straight away that they missed it."But he said the doctors had since "been brilliant the whole way through". Charlie has undergone brain surgery twice, and a good amount of the tumour has been successfully also had six weeks of daily radiotherapy and six months of chemotherapy, which he describes as "really hard going."He now has scans every six months to monitor the tumour. Charlie's wife Siobhan says finding out about it was "terrifying".But she says: "We very much got on with it... I think it has taken its toll on our children because for two years through the treatment life's a bit chaotic."Siobhan has been taking part in fundraising ever since "because we need more awareness, more research, and ultimately more hope".She is about to take part in the 88 Squats a Day in July challenge for Brain Tumour Jones, head of community and digital fundraising at the charity, said: "Stories like Charlie's highlight the urgent need for more research into brain tumours, which remain the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40 in the UK." "At the moment it's all positive stuff, the tumour's stable, but the type of tumour it is, at some point it won't be great news," Charlie says."But what we're doing is making the most of everything and focussing on those six-month scans, and doing anything the doctors tell me to do, and keeping my two boys happy, and doing everything we can with them." You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Carers like me connect patients and doctors – so why are we so often made to feel invisible?
It's autumn 2024 and I'm talking to an A&E doctor. We're on the refreshment break at a conference about care. He tells me that he and his colleagues keep their NHS lanyards visible when they take loved ones to medical appointments. It means the doctors listen to them. It's understandable; they're peers with shared training and expertise. But it's also infuriating because I know Mary's story and many more like it. Mary is 58, and lives in Wales with her husband and their adult son. As a result of epilepsy in infancy, her son has global developmental delay. Practically, this means that he is non-mobile, non-verbal and takes food through a tube to his stomach. I worked with Mary and 15 other unpaid carers last year, supporting them to keep weekly diaries and interviewing them, resulting in a research report. Mary's son requires medication to prevent excess drooling. He can't stop himself choking, so it's essential to minimise his saliva production. But in her diary, she explained that the medication was changed and the new type was less effective – he was having dangerous coughing fits. Mary reported this to his medical team but, in her words: 'It was a feeling of, if it wasn't witnessed by a health professional it didn't happen.' A few weeks later, she had a meeting in her home with some of his care team. 'I was just lucky that he performed,' she told me with a wry, tired smile, by which she meant he had a coughing fit in front of the professionals. His medication was swiftly reverted. I wish Mary's story was unique. But it's not. Ada is 80 and also cares for her son. He's in his 40s, and has autism and several other conditions. She had been warning medical professionals about his escalating panic attacks for months, but nothing had been done. In one incident, he became so panicked that he ran away from his daycare centre and had to be located by police. At other times, when it's just Ada and him at home, things can turn violent. Still, Ada told me that her concerns were dismissed. She was only believed when, by chance, a psychiatrist happened to witness one of these panic attacks. 'He said it was one of the gravest attacks he had seen.' To be an unpaid carer is to be deemed not credible, according to Mary, Ada and several other carers in this study. Mary feels this is especially apparent higher up the professional ladder. The community-based staff listen to her, perhaps because they see what she does for her son on a daily basis. But of consultants and doctors, she said: 'I'm lucky if they'll even look at me.' Yet it is Mary who has been at every medical appointment for her son during his 26 years. It is Mary who spends 15 hours in every 24-hour period providing care for him (alongside her part-time job and the paid care he receives). It is Mary who spots side effects, monitors symptoms and administers medications. It's not just about feeling respected; for carers such as Mary and Ada, being heard is a matter of life, death and safety. Of that meeting at which her son 'performed', she wrote that there had been too few chairs to seat all the attenders, so she perched on the periphery. 'The irony that there was no room for me at the table was not lost.' Family members provide far more than hands-on care at home in the absence of paid workers – their unpaid labour is woven through the entire health and care system and at all times. At the most basic level, they perform a high volume of administrative tasks, made harder by disjointed and complex systems. In fact, the carers in the study spent up to 220 hours over 12 weeks on these sorts of tasks for the people they are caring for. The diaries read like broken records – endless arranging and rearranging of appointments, prescriptions and finances, automated phone services that lead to dead ends, digitised forms that aren't fit for purpose. 'I wish that we did not move in circles,' wrote Philippa, 86, and caring for her 60-year-old son, after a long week trying to sort out his future care. In a cast of changing medical and care professionals, family members also act as essential living repositories of their loved ones' medical histories. Jared's wife had an industrial accident in 2011, after which she was in a coma. Jared told me that her medical notes were about 900 pages long. Medical professionals have rarely, if ever, had time to read all of the notes. In this context, Jared becomes indispensable as 'the only one who can say, well, this happened in this order'. Beyond project management and medical histories, carers also reported enabling what professionals call 'person-centred care', ensuring that the personality and preferences of their family members are understood. Lisa's mum is 75, and has diabetes, multiple sclerosis and cognitive decline. She is supported by a live-in paid worker. Lisa settles in the paid workers when they rotate. She does this practically – showing them where things are in the house – but she also communicates 'the nuances of Mum … I want to get across to them that they are going to see the worst side of her, but she's not that.' She tells them about the dinner parties her mother used to throw, her flirtatious and bubbly nature. 'She's such a different person now that you want her care workers to understand who she was.' Throughout the interviews and diaries, carers such as Lisa explain repeatedly how they lubricate the system, enabling it to function when care-receiving loved ones cannot. They are the unseen but essential lifeblood of the health and care system: it's not about them, but it does not function without them. Since being a carer myself, and subsequently writing a book about carers' experiences, I have developed a keen sense for when a policymaker, politician or simply a member of the public has failed to understand the contribution of carers. The Labour party manifesto last year was a case in point. It managed to set out a plan on care yet omit carers, that is, the people who perform the vast majority of care in the UK. Subsequent governmental announcements fall into the same trap, paying carers cursory attention. While we wait for politicians to catch up with reality, perhaps carers need to pirate those NHS identity cards. I'm not serious, of course. But I think, too, of Mary, Ada and all the other carers I've met, walking a tightrope of their loved ones' safety on a daily basis, steeped in loving and practical knowledge. It shouldn't take a piece of laminated card for them to win legitimacy. Emily Kenway is a social-policy doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh and author of Who Cares: the Hidden Crisis of Caregiving and How We Solve It
South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- Health
- South China Morning Post
How a Hong Kong man's drug-resistant epilepsy was relieved using robotics
Hongkonger Lo Wai-shing, 45, was diagnosed with drug-resistant epilepsy when he was 15 and says he once suffered from 10 seizures in a single month and might still experience one or two episodes a month despite taking medication. Holding down a regular job proved difficult due to his condition, he said, adding that he had only ever worked for his uncle's company and a supermarket that also employed his aunt. Lo underwent minimally invasive surgery at Queen Mary Hospital in April that involved a new robotic system. The procedure allowed doctors to identify the area of his brain that was causing the seizures and use heat generated by radio waves to destroy a small part of the tissue to help relieve his condition. 'In the month after the surgery, I have not had any seizures, and I sleep very well,' he said. 'I am very happy as it has largely reduced the frequency of the seizures.' The new robotic system means doctors in Hong Kong can use a more accurate and less invasive approach to identify the sources of epilepsy conditions that are untreatable with medication. Dr Benedict Taw Beng-teck, a neurosurgery consultant at the hospital, said the system could assist surgeons during a procedure named stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), which involves locating the area of the brain that causes epilepsy.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Canadian who died in ICE custody lived a 'simple life,' his lawyer says
The Canadian man who died while in custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this week was a "very polite, quiet, unassuming man with a very simple life" who did not pose a danger to anyone, says the lawyer who represented him. Dan Leising represented Johnny Noviello, 49, who died in a detention centre in Florida on Monday. The cause of death is unknown and is under investigation, says an ICE news release. In 2023, Noviello was convicted of a number of offences — including racketeering and drug trafficking — and had been sentenced to 12 months in prison, according to the ICE release. But Leising says Noviello never actually went to state prison. Being sentenced to 364 days, he served time in county jail and was out on probation when he was arrested by ICE in May. Leising says Noviello had not violated the terms of his probation. Leising described the charges against Noviello as "very, very serious." He said Noviello had worked as a cashier and did some janitorial work, and had no prior criminal record. "Is he violent or anybody that you'd be afraid of if you walked by them on the street? Absolutely not," said Leising. Leising says he stayed in contact with Noviello's family during his detention and after his death. The family once called Leising when they were unable to get in contact with Noviello during his detention. He said the family was concerned about Noviello getting the medication required to treat his epilepsy. Leising said he has no knowledge of Noviello's access to that medicine while in detention. Despite having Canadian citizenship, Noviello had been in the U.S. since 1988 and became a lawful permanent resident in 1991, the release says. Noviello was being detained by ICE "pending removal proceedings," the agency's news release said. In an interview with CBC's Power & Politics, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said consular officials had been in touch with Noviello as soon as they heard of his detention. "At this point we are also seeking additional information relating to the circumstances of his passing away, and I'd like to extend my condolences to his family," she said. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra posted a statement on social media saying his team is following the investigation into Noviello's death. "We will keep the Canadian government informed as ICE completes its investigation," he wrote in a post on X. Noviello's death comes as ICE agents are making sweeping arrests across the United States. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and the main architect of U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policies, has pushed ICE to aim for at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump's second term. Lawyer and policy analyst Richard Kurland says Noviello's criminal history means that he meets Trump's profile for priority removal. He says the president's focus on deporting criminals and "mass detention" comes with "great risk" to those in custody. "You do not enjoy the luxury of isolated cells," said Kurland. "You're going to have physical interactions between detainees." Noviello isn't the only Canadian to have been arrested in the U.S. since the ICE sweeps began. Global Affairs Canada told CBC News in a statement that it is aware of "several dozen cases of Canadians currently in immigration-related detention in the U.S." One Canadian, Jasmine Mooney from B.C., was arrested and held for nearly two weeks after trying to get a work visa renewed. She was released and returned to Canada in mid-March. WATCH | Canadian describes ICE detention: U.S. immigration lawyer Len Saunders, who represents Mooney, says he was surprised to hear of Noviello's death. "You don't see a lot of Canadians in immigration detention in the United States," he said. Saunders says the detention system is complex — detainees can't just say they want to be sent home. "They have to go through the formal deportation proceedings, they have to see an immigration judge," he said. Saunders says when Mooney was detained, one of her friends wanted to know how to speed up the process. His response was to go to the news. "That's the only reason I think Jasmine Mooney was released so quickly," he said. In the case of Noviello, Kurland says there's nothing Canada could have done to prevent his death. But he says Canada must try to negotiate an overall deal with the U.S. when it comes to the detention and deportation of its citizens — because the numbers of Canadians held by ICE will only grow. "We need to act now to create a special protocol just for Canadian detainees," he said. "That would relieve a lot of people in a bad situation."
