At the beginning of the cardiac cycle the brain vasculature is draining the blood from the previous diastole. The new surge of blood into the brain arrives via the carotid arteries that originate from the aortic arch, distributing blood into all areas of the brain.
The blood flow into the brain is not symmetric due to the asymmetry of the brain vasculature with the right common carotid branching from the aorta closer to the left ventricle of the heart than the left common carotid. This pulse of blood into the right hemisphere of the brain 10s of milliseconds before the flow into the left hemisphere begins to move the skull away from the right hemisphere before the pulse arriving into the left hemisphere slows that initial motion. This process puts the brain in oscillation with typically five complete oscillations within each heartbeat.
The BrainPulse device uses highly sensitive accelerometers placed on a headset to detect this movement of the skull. The movement patterns are not only a result of the pulsatile blood flow into the brain, but also physical parameters of the brain tissue. Measuring this skull motion and disruptions of such motion is the purpose of Jan Medical’s BrainPulse technology. Machine learning approaches allow patterns to be recognized and algorithms to be researched that are sufficiently specific to brain pathologies. The BrainPulse data, which is acquired within a few minutes, can aid in the diagnosis of these pathologies and enable triage of patients for adequate treatment.