Health IT

The hunt for behavioral health biomarkers is harnessing digital health at the research stage

"[Behavioral health] is a very hot topic now because we have easy access to so much more data thanks to smartphones and wearable sensors," said Dr. John Torous, co-director of the digital psychiatry program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Digital health companies are going through an interesting transformation as research institutions realize the benefit of their technology to collect and manage data for a host of studies. The biopharma industry’s embrace of some digital health tools to manage the costs of drug development has led to more frequent collaborations with research institutions, particularly in the behavioral health space. It’s not surprising since mental health can influence medication adherence, which can undermine a drug’s effectiveness, but that’s not the only factor at play. There’s also the great hunt for biomarkers and other clues that cognitive assessments can provide in piecing together data that can lead to earlier interventions from depression to schizophrenia.

Here are a few examples of the convergence between digital health tools, behavioral health studies and academic research institutions.

Academic researchers from University of North Carolina and Harvard turned to technology company Verily and spinoff company Mindstrong to collect and manage data for a study across 19 hospitals to identify the biomarkers associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to Wired. Participants in the 5,000 person Aurora study will be recruited from the emergency rooms of hospitals that are part of the study. Although they will be given smart watches from Verily to collect data such as heart rate, skin electrical conductivity, and movement, they’ll also be expected to check in monthly. The article also noted Mindstrong’s role:

By monitoring things like keystroke speed and pressure, speed of word choice while texting, and even simple time on-screen—invisibly, in the background—the Mindstrong algorithms are supposed to be able to pick up early signs and symptoms of psychiatric disorders. It’s the “digital phenotype” of an illness.

Last week 23andMe launched an even larger study for a 25,000-person genetic study to better understand the biology tied to major depressive and bipolar disorders, according to a news release. It will combine cognitive assessments with genetic data and survey responses to assess how genes influence brain processes. It is intended to follow up on a study on depression the company co-authored last year identifying 15 genetic regions linked to depression. It hopes to recruit 15,000 people with major depressive disorder and 10,000 people with bipolar disorder.

Although Savonix is not embarking on studies on this scale, it regards the cognitive assessment tool it’s developing a bit like a blood test for the brain. Its goal is to establish a global standard for digital cognitive assessment using mobile devices. Its approach is also intended to support data collection and storage. It is collaborating with several organizations including brain scan imaging business CereScan, New York University, Proove Biosciences, Alkahest and Senescence Life Sciences. Savonix developed a screening test for dementia for a payer, Cofounder and CEO Mylea Charvat said in a phone interview.

A clinical psychologist and translational neuroscientist, Charvat said the business is also working with a couple of pharmaceutical companies to use the company’s cognitive assessment tool as part of their clinical trials. She noted that one trial approved by the FDA will use Savonix’s test as part of a study for an Alzheimer’s disease treatment. The company closed a $5.1 million Series A round in June to add more partnerships and enter markets in Japan and China.

The cognitive assessment from Savonix is more than a questionnaire, said Charvat. It is a series of puzzles the user has to figure out. Other areas where it will apply its cognitive assessment program include chronic pain, depression, diabetes, ADHD and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.

Dr. John Torous is co-director of the digital psychiatry program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School affiliated teaching hospital. He is part of a team that worked with Boston-based software developer Zco to produce its cognitive assessment app LAMP (Learn, Assess, Manage, Prevent) for assessing Alzheimer’s disease. Torous said in an email that they are currently awaiting institutional review board approval to use the app to assess schizophrenia and depression.

“[Behavioral health] is a very hot topic now because we have easy access to so much more data thanks to smartphones and wearable sensors,” he wrote. “There is the implicit assumption that lots of data mean lots of value. But having all this data is only the first step… The genetic code is still a challenge decades after we’ve had access to genes.”

Photo: Pixtum, Getty Images

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