Stanford Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions
Mentaid
We are excited to share with you our wearable solution for mental health.
Most of us have felt anxious or depressed at some point. But at what point does your short term feeling of depression become a debilitating illness such as Major Depressive Disorder?
Anxiety and depressive disorders affect over 400 million people globally and cost 1 trillion dollars to address each year. These disorders are fatal. 1 million people die every year from suicide caused by depression.
Our team has a solution to this devastating situation. And, the solution is possible because of our combined expertise in cutting-edge wearable technology and brain imaging.
Right now, mental health care relies on subjective judgements. Our solution brings objectivity. We have a wearable that measures physical changes, and we connect these to the changes in biological brain circuits that define mental states and disorders. We hope to then more precisely predict an individual’s personal signature for depression risk.
Our wearable - the Mentaid - will be in the form of a patch on the skin that is discreet and comfortable. We are combining existing sensors with new generation biological sensors to monitor physiological changes that have been shown to be correlated to mental states. The device will have the capability to detect hormones in sweat, skin conductivity, electrolytes, in addition to other traditional measures such as light, sound, heart rate.
An effort like this requires a multidisciplinary approach, so our team is made up of people from several departments, including psychiatry, chemical engineering, bioengineering, computer science, and global health. Together, we are creating and hope to sustain a system of mental health care that is informed by objective biological data and is focused on prevention and personalized treatments.
Our work is relevant to all of us because we all experience these common mental states. We want to hear from you on on what you would find useful in a wearable like this. Please send us your feedback and join us in finally treating something so common as depression with as much seriousness and care as it really demands.
We are
8 departments: Psychiatry, Computer Science, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Design School, Bioengineering, Global Health, Policy/Law
3 schools: School of Medicine, School of Engineering, Law School
Each of our departments is located in various parts of the Stanford campus (red circles).
Meet The Team
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Zhenan BaoP.I.Department: Chemical Engineering Position: Professor -
Leanne WilliamsCo - P.I.Department: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Position: Professor -
Jan LiphardtCo - P.I.Department: Bioengineering Position: Associate Professor -
James LandayCo - P.I.Department: Computer Science Position: Professor -
Erin MacDonaldCo - P.I.Department: Mechanical Engineering Position: Assistant Professor -
Keith HumphreysCo - P.I.Department: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Position: Professor
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Pablo ParedesCo - P.I.Department: Radiology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Position: Instructor -
Michele BarrySenior Team MemberDepartment: School of Medicine, Population Health Position: Senior Associate Dean for Global Health -
Katherine BurkeSenior Team MemberDepartment: School of Medicine, Population Health Position: Deputy Director, Stanford Global Health -
Yuqing ZhengPostdoctoral ScholarDepartment: Chemical Engineering Position: Postdoctoral Scholar -
Elizabeth MurnanePostdoctoral ScholarDepartment: Computer Science Position: Postdoctoral Scholar -
Levent BekerPostdoctoral ScholarDepartment: Chemical Engineering Position: Postdoctoral Scholar
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Amir FoudehPostdoctoral ScholarDepartment: Chemical Engineering Position: Postdoctoral Scholar -
Druthi GhantaResearch AssistantDepartment: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Position: Neuroimaging Research Assistant -
Bailey Holt-GosselinResearch AssistantDepartment: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Position: Neuroimaging Research Assistant -
Leonardo TozziPostdoctoral ScholarDepartment: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Position: Postdoctoral Scholar -
Ben AlpersResearch Assistanthttp://editor.sitebuilder.com/#Department: Mechanical Engineering Position: Design Research Assistant
Events
Our passion for mental health and technology motivates us to attend events where we can both share our work and learn from others.
11/07/17
We presented at the 2017 Stanford School of Engineering Dean's Circle, where we were grateful to discuss mental health and receive feedback from the attendees.
Mentaid team in the audience at the 2017 Stanford School of Engineering Dean's Circle.
02/27/18
We participated in an
eWear workshop on design thinking principles led by Dr. Erin MacDonald and Ben Alpers. The workshop focused on wearables for mental health.
We worked in teams with individuals from Stanford and industry. Druthi Ghanta is pictured collaborating with her workshop partner.
Yuqing Zheng is presenting her group's responses to the design task.
02/28/18
The eWear conference allowed us to connect with a diverse wearables community. Dr. Zhenan Bao, who is the founder and faculty director of eWear, commenced the conference. She also gave a talk on "Skin-Inspired Electronic Materials."
Dr. James Landay gave a talk on "How to Use Haptics to Change Behavior."
Dr. Jan Liphardt spoke on the "Challenges for Implementing Wearables" panel.
Druthi Ghanta gave a brief pitch on behalf of Mentaid at the eWear conference.
Our team presented at the poster session. Pictured (from left to right) are Ben Alpers, Druthi Ghanta, Dr. Elizabeth Murnane, and Dr. Yuqing Zheng.
The Stanford Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions
The Stanford Catalyst for Collaborative Solutions is a new initiative with a bold mission – to create an open space to explore uncommon interdisciplinary solutions to our world’s most pressing problems and to become an internationally recognized model of a purposeful, high-impact, and interdisciplinary research ecosystem.
Learn more about Catalyst.