Flashing Memories: Headwear for Alzheimer's

Alzheimer’s disease is a slow acting neurodegenerative disease that erodes people’s short and long term memory. While there is no definitive cause of Alzheimer’s, it is understood that it begins with neurons in the brain not being able to properly communicate to one another due to plaque “deposits of a protein fragment called beta-amyloid” build up in the neuron synapse. These blockages and tangling of neurons prohibit signals from being transferred and proper amounts of oxygen from reaching the brain. This leads to cell damage, difficulty remembering short and long term memories, and eventually death. The biggest challenge with Alzheimer’s is that there is still so much we do not know about the brain that it is difficult to understand what triggers this disease to develop. Alzheimer’s also attack different parts of the each Alzheimer’s victim differently. Doctors can see where the plaque develops, but there is no predicting where it will spread to next or how quickly it will spread. The brain begins to shrink overtime causing more and more cell death until the brain cannot receive a significant amount of oxygen to survive. This disease personally affected my family. My grandmother passed away in 2014 from Alzheimer’s after a seven year battle. It was heart-wrenching to see someone we loved so much slowly forget more and more about her life until she could only remember my mom, my grandpa, and a few church song lyrics.

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While there have been attempts to slow down the progression of the plaque build up via medication, most of the medicines make have minimal success. Testing and research is being done to experiment alternative treatment methods. In my research I found a study from MIT led by Dr. Li-Huei Tsai about a potentially revolutionary style of treatment. Dr. Li-Huei Tsai infected mice with Alzheimer’s to test out if flickering LED lights could stimulate gamma waves, which not only reduced levels of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain, but also boost the clearance of harmful debris. The data from the study reflects a correlation between a reduction of beta-amyloid plaques after just one hour of strips of LEDs on the brain flickering at different speeds. This idea inspired by sensory prototype. If there was a sensor that was placed on someones head that reflected where the plaque build was most dense, then an Alzheimer’s victim could wear a hat that had this LED light strip. The user could have treatment in the comfort and familiarity of their own home. (It is extremely important for Alzheimer’s victims to stay in familiar environments because it allows them to not get confused and have better recall abilities).

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During my prototype exploration, I had to think about how I could pattern a hat that would cover

parts of the brain that are most likely to be affected by Alzheimer’s while also having enough space for the LED strips. It would need to have a space for the strips, a battery, a place for the other sensor on the brain, for a micro-controller, and cables. I would have to have a double layered cap part of the hat. The space between the layers of the cap would be where all the technology is stored. This would also allow for a port to connect to the battery to charge it. The micro-controller would locate where the sensor on the brain is and based off of the location, would know the neuron map of that part of the brain. From there it would know both the frequency of the flashing lights and the exact location of where the LEDs need to stimulate. Alzheimer’s affects the hippocampus, the cerebral cortex, the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and parietal lobe. In other words, it affects everywhere. The sensor would need to recognize what lobe it’s trying to target, the parts of the brain in each lobe, and the specific frequency of that lobe.