Research – Now and Into the Future

Neuroscan is a company founded by neuro­sci­en­tists with a primary mission to support the needs of inves­ti­ga­tors, in both the research and clin­i­cal domains. For over 20 years, research and devel­op­ment has remained the primary focus of Neuroscan. From creat­ing the world’s first complete hard­ware and soft­ware pack­age for acquir­ing and process­ing EEG and ERP data to devel­op­ing the indus­try stan­dard in qual­ity ampli­fiers, Neuroscan has strived to provide advanced solu­tions for research on the lead­ing edge of science.

Compre­hen­sive Solutions

Neuroscan recog­nizes the impor­tance of provid­ing compre­hen­sive solu­tions for research. Each compo­nent in the Neuroscan family of prod­ucts inte­grates seam­lessly with the others, allow­ing the selec­tion of only those tools that meet your current needs, secure in the knowl­edge that a clear upgrade path exists when your require­ments neces­si­tate expan­sion. From the most basic EEG record­ings to sensory, percep­tual and cogni­tive ERPs, from source local­iza­tion to inte­gra­tion with MRI data or even simul­ta­ne­ous record­ing with fMRI, the evolu­tion of the Neuroscan prod­uct line continues.

Devel­op­ing solu­tions that support a wide vari­ety of appli­ca­tions is no small task. Start­ing with the most basic process­ing tools that are common to all EEG appli­ca­tions, Neuroscan has not only incor­po­rated these algo­rithms but has sought to opti­mize and improve these processes. For instance, eye arti­fact reduc­tion is a neces­sary part of all EEG data process­ing, and Neuroscan provides multi­ple meth­ods for detec­tion and reduc­tion, with imme­di­ate appli­ca­tion so you can see which meth­ods work best (using CURRY 7).

Beyond basic data process­ing, Neuroscan has incor­po­rated an exten­sive array of analy­sis tools and is constantly assess­ing and incor­po­rat­ing the latest process­ing algo­rithms to provide the neuro­science commu­nity with the most advanced tools for their research. Exam­ples include real time source analy­sis with gener­al­ized bound­ary and finite element head models, real time inde­pen­dent compo­nents analy­sis and filter­ing, multi­ple single and distrib­uted source models, and non-parametric topo­graph­i­cal ANOVAs.

Func­tional Neuroimaging

One major focus of our ongo­ing R&D efforts is in the area of func­tional neuroimag­ing. Over the years, three sepa­rate research groups have merged differ­ent areas of exper­tise to produce true func­tional neuroimag­ing integration.

Histor­i­cally, R&D in the El Paso office of Neuroscan was respon­si­ble for the ampli­fiers and acqui­si­tion and analy­sis soft­ware for EEG and ERP systems — SCAN. Real time inte­gra­tion of EEG and fMRI acqui­si­tion became the focus of the Neuroscan team about 10 years ago. To facil­i­tate this devel­op­ment, active inter­na­tional collab­o­ra­tions have been estab­lished with some of the most advanced fMRI facil­i­ties in the world. Ulti­mately, the combined tempo­ral reso­lu­tion of EEG and ERPs and spatial accu­racy of fMRI will provide neuro­sci­en­tists with an unprece­dented capac­ity to explore sensory, percep­tual and cogni­tive processes in normal and patho­log­i­cal populations.

Oper­at­ing in paral­lel since 2000, when Neuroscan acquired CURRY from Philips, the source recon­struc­tion group in Hamburg, Germany has devel­oped advanced algo­rithms for segmen­ta­tion and source recon­struc­tion that have led to the most sophis­ti­cated neuroimag­ing soft­ware pack­age in the world — CURRY.

CURRY is used world­wide in a vari­ety of research facil­i­ties, and in an increas­ing number of clin­i­cal oper­a­tions, deal­ing primar­ily with epilepsy, where CURRY’s abil­ity to inte­grate EEG and MEG with the CT, MRI, and other forms of image data provide an insight into the origin of the epilep­tic activity.

Neuroscan merged with Compumedics in 2003, and there was then a third R&D divi­sion, devoted primar­ily to the devel­op­ment of EEG ampli­fiers and soft­ware systems related to sleep disorders.

Now and Into the Future

In recent years, there has been an inevitable and delib­er­ate inte­gra­tion of the three over­lap­ping R&D divi­sions, culmi­nat­ing in the CURRY Neuroimag­ing Suite, or CURRY 7. This suite of modu­lar programs combines the years of soft­ware devel­op­ment for EEG acqui­si­tion and analy­sis from SCAN and the Compumedics acqui­si­tion soft­ware, with the image data analy­sis and source recon­struc­tion from CURRY. CURRY 7 has been designed to acquire data not only with the Neuroscan ampli­fiers, but also with the Compumedics ampli­fiers. Data files from SCAN and from the Compumedics soft­ware are all read directly by CURRY 7.

CURRY 7 provides a solid foun­da­tion for years of future devel­op­ment in the research world, while also becom­ing more ensconced in clin­i­cal facil­i­ties. Because of its modu­lar devel­op­ment, users need only obtain the compo­nents required for their current needs. The blend of R&D resources within Compumedics/Neuroscan ensures that the future will see even more func­tion­al­ity, as we contin­u­ally strive to provide the best and most current capa­bil­i­ties for our users.

For addi­tional details please contact sales@neuroscan.com or sales@compumedicsneuroscan.com