BRAINTRAIN MADE IT TO THE THIRD ROUND OF SOCIAL BUSINESS CREATION COMPETITION 2023

A project called BrainTrain from the School of Biomedical Engineering, International University – VNU-HCM officially made its way to the third round of Social Business Creation (SBC) Competition 2023 after reaching top 30% in the second round.

Recently, BrainTrain officially made its way to the third round of SBC 2023 after reaching the top 30% in the second round.Social Business Creation (SBC) is a global business-focused competition initialized by HEC Montréal (Canada) and Prof. Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace laureate. This research idea came from a graduate student at IU School of Biomedical Engineering.

With his excellent academic background, Mr. Phan Ngoc Minh Thu, IU School of Biomedical Engineering, won a 50-million-VND scholarship from ITR VN Corporation for his thesis of “Evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive training focused application BrainTrain on Alzheimer’s patients with mild cognitive impairment at Military Hospital 175”, which is supervised by Dr. Ha Thi Thanh Huong – Lecturer of IU School of Biomedical Engineering. Representatives from ITR VN Corporation also shared that this is a highly potential project that can create a big impact on society. In addition to the support from ITR VN Corporation, BrainTrain also got the chance to work with doctors from the Neurology Department of Military Hospital 175 and IU School of Information Technology. The application was even tested at University College London (UCL), England by the research group of Dr. Andrew Sommerlad.

EEG test at 175 Hospital using the app of BrainTrain

BrainTrain is an intervention measure for individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) from the early stage of amnesia through cognitive trainings at home and by sharing the results to doctors. This method is also cost-effective, which creates cognitive trainings for patients in remote areas and reduces the burden on the health care system. At the same time, the research team will collect patients’ cognitive scores and EMG results after 6 months to check for any changes in their neural activities. From this, an AI model can be built to predict the effectiveness of intervention. The application and the model to predict the effectiveness of intervention will be sent to hospitals and medical departments so that doctors can have more intervention options.

The interface of BrainTrain application: