Revolutionizing Brain Health: The Beacon Biosignals Approach
The human brain remains one of medicine’s most fascinating and perplexing mysteries. Scientists still have difficulty matching neurological activity with brain function and detecting problems early, slowing efforts to treat neurological disorders and other diseases.
Innovative EEG Technology for Sleep Monitoring
Beacon Biosignals, co-founded by Jake Donoghue PhD ’19 and former MIT researcher Jarrett Revels, aims to demystify the brain by monitoring its activity during sleep. The company has developed a lightweight headband that leverages electroencephalogram (EEG) technology, enabling people to track brain activity as they sleep at home. This data is then analyzed using advanced machine learning algorithms to evaluate the effects of treatments, uncover signs of disease progression, and establish patient cohorts for clinical trials.
“Taking away the sleep lab and bringing clinical-grade EEG in-house represents a huge shift in what becomes possible,” says Donoghue, who serves as Beacon’s CEO. “It transforms sleep from a limited, facility-based test into a scalable source of high-quality data for diagnostics, drug development, and longitudinal brain health.”
Accelerating Treatment Development
Beacon collaborates closely with pharmaceutical companies to expedite its innovations’ journey to patients. The company’s FDA 510(k)-cleared medical device has been incorporated in over 40 clinical trials worldwide, addressing conditions such as major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
With each deployment, Beacon gains deeper insights into brain function, contributing to the creation of a fundamental model of the brain. As Donoghue notes, “We believe the data set that will transform brain health doesn’t exist yet – but we’re building it quickly.”
Illuminating the Brain’s Mysteries
Donoghue, trained in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, completed his clinical and doctoral training at MIT, focusing on neuroscience. His experiences at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital highlighted the lack of precise data-driven approaches in neurology and psychiatry, inspiring him to bring such precision to brain health.
“What struck me most was the inability to measure brain function in the way that cardiologists can longitudinally monitor patients’ heart function from home,” says Donoghue. “At MIT, I developed the belief that processing lots of brain data and working to correlate it with brain function would fundamentally change the way these neurological diseases are identified and treated.”
Donoghue’s collaboration with mentors and his meeting with Revels at MIT’s Julia Lab led to the founding of Beacon in 2019. The company started as a computing and analytics entity developing wearable devices to enhance clinical impact and reach.
Unlocking Sleep’s Potential
“It was clear that sleep was the right window into understanding the brain,” says Donoghue. “Neural activity during sleep can be an order of magnitude higher and more structured, almost like a language. It’s a great surface for understanding brain function and the effects of different drugs on the brain.”
Beacon’s devices collect comprehensive data over multiple nights, offering a superior quality assessment. Machine learning algorithms enable insights into sleep stages and subtle changes in sleep architecture that may lead to cognitive decline.
“We are starting to capture features of sleep activity and link them to outcomes in a way that has never been possible before with this level of precision,” says Donoghue.
Looking Ahead: A New Era in Brain Health
Beacon participates in clinical trials for sleep and psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, where sleep disturbances can precede symptoms by years. “We do a lot of work in areas like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, which affected my grandfather,” says Donoghue. “We analyze features of rapid eye movement and slow wave sleep to detect early changes that precede clinical symptoms. This is an opportunity to move these diseases from late detection to much earlier, data-driven detection.”
In a strategic move to expand its platform, Beacon acquired an at-home sleep apnea testing company, reaching over 100,000 patients annually in the U.S. This expansion was further supported by a $97 million funding round in November.
“The vision has always been to reach patients and help them on a large scale,” says Donoghue. “What is powerful is that we are creating a longitudinal record of brain function over time. A patient might come in for sleep apnea screening, but if they develop Parkinson’s years later, that earlier data becomes a window into the disease before symptoms appear. This makes routine testing a basis for entirely new prognostic biomarkers – and a way to detect brain diseases earlier and intervene, perhaps before symptoms even appear.”
For more detailed insights and ongoing updates on Beacon Biosignals’ groundbreaking work, visit the original article Here.
“`
