About Us
The Laboratory for Brain and Cognitive Health Technology at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School is dedicated to advancing our understanding of the brain and cognitive health through the structured development, validation, and dissemination of digital technology tools. Together with our partner organization, the Many Brains Project, we have collected data from over 3 million participants and supported over 2000 sites using our open-source cognitive assessments.
Our Work
We are a methods lab and our work is focused on building tools that can better quantify variations in cognitive function across people and over time. We believe that good measurement is accessible measurement. To make our measures more accessible we have (1) key priorites that guide our research and methods development, and (2) key resources that we support for the research and participant communities. These research priorities and community resources are described below. All resources are supported by McLean Hospital, Mass General Brigham, the Many Brains Project, and funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Scalable Digital Neuropsychology
Digital neuropsychology is the application of digital technology to neuropsychological assessment. Digital technology provides new opportunities to more precisely measure neuropsychological function, but it also provides opportunities for scalable assessment of individual-level cognitive phenotypes.
Designing for Accessibility
The development of new technology for cognitive health will not reduce health disparities unless it is accessible to those communities that suffer the greatest burden of neuropsychiatric disorders. We believe accessibility is a prerequisite to precision measurement and all the tools we design are made to be accessible to participants and researchers from as many backgrounds as possible.
Cognitive Monitoring
Traditional cognitive assessment is restricted to a limited number of timepoints. High frequency assessment approaches like ecological momentary assessment now enable a dynamic view of cognitive function that can progress our understanding of cognition in health and disease.
Participant Engagement
TestMyBrain began with participant engagement as a fundamental priority, embedded in a citizen science model. Our approach to participant engagement recognizes that participants are not "subjects" but research collaborators and as such are entitled to their data and individual results. We have returned individual results to over 3 million participants since 2008, through TestMyBrain.org.
