Making Healthier Minds

Listening to music and drinking coffee are the sorts of everyday pleasures that can impact a person’s brain activity in ways that improve cognitive performance, including in tasks requiring concentration and memory. That’s a finding of a new NYU Tandon School of Engineering study involving MINDWATCH, a groundbreaking brain-monitoring technology.

Developed over the past six years by Associate Professor Rose Faghih (BME, CUSP), MINDWATCH is an algorithm that analyzes a person’s brain activity from data collected via any wearable device that can monitor electrodermal activity (EDA). This activity reflects changes in electrical conductance triggered by emotional stress, linked to sweat responses.

Sheltering in refugee centers can positively impact asylum seekers’ mental health, according to a new study by researchers including NYU Tandon Institute Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Science + Progress Maurizio Porfiri (MAE, BME, CUE, CUSP), underscoring the benefits of providing migrants safe and welcoming transitional environments in which professionals in the host countries monitor their psychological and physical needs.

The study aimed to understand the impact of the first contact with the reception system on the mental health of asylum-seekers and to delve into predictors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among that population.

Losing the ability to speak due to neurological damage can be incredibly isolating. But thanks to recent advancements in technology, there’s hope on the horizon. Scientists have been working on neural speech prostheses, special devices that can help people who have trouble speaking by translating brain activity into speech.

In a recent study published in Nature Machine Intelligence, a team of NYU researchers led by Professor Yao Wang (ECE, BME, NYU WIRELESS, CATT), Associate Professor Adeen Flinker (BME, NYU Grossman School of Medicine) and Tandon ECE Ph.D. student Xupeng Chen presented a significant advancement in the decoding of speech using neural architectures — turning signals recorded from the brain and transforming them into audible speech. Building upon previous research, their work introduces modifications that enhance decoding accuracy across a broader range of voices.

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