# Healthy Aging: an EEG-based wearable device to accurately monitor sleep and enhance quality for improved cognitive functioning

> **NIH NIH R43** · DEEPWAVE TECHNOLOGIES, INC. · 2020 · $222,900

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
More than 40% of individuals as young as 60 start to experience some sort of cognitive decline. Among these,
nearly one person in five develops mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a potential precursor of severe
neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and dementia.
Today, AD and dementia represent
an economic burden of
$277 B/year in the U.S. alone. Nothing can be done to cure or slow down them and drug
development has failed so far - big pharma companies are quitting research in this field. Notwithstanding, life
expectancy is rising. By 2050 the number of dementia cases will triple, and 13.2 million Americans will live with
AD. Therefore, finding alternative interventions to slow down cognitive decline is an urgent priority and a
necessary answer to an unmet need. Age-related decline in memory performance has been linked to the
age-related reduction of deep sleep, or Slow Wave sleep (SWS). Interestingly, this represents a modifiable risk
factor for cognitive decline. We previously demonstrated the ability to enhance declarative memory in older adults
by manipulating SWS for one night, in a laboratory environment, through non-invasive acoustic stimulation. The
key is in the timing of acoustic stimulation, which is based on real-time analysis of EEG signal and aims at
amplifying the single slow wave. However, it must be verified whether this acoustic stimulation can be
comfortably tolerated when administered for many consecutive nights and whether memory enhancement shows
a cumulative effect. To this extent, with this SBIR phase I project, we plan to bring our technology from the
laboratory environment to the home-base settings. In particular, we aim to 1) Realize and validate a wearable
headband, suitable for at-home-use, capable to detect the SWS upstate from EEG signal in real-time, and to
deliver, accordingly, an acoustic stimulation. 2) Test user experience of the new device in healthy and MCI adults
aged 60 and older. 3) Examine cumulative memory enhancement in these subjects upon delivery of acoustic
stimulation for 7 consecutive nights. The successful outcomes of this project will open the way to the realization
of the first wearable for cognitive training, based on safe manipulation of sleep via EEG-controlled acoustic
stimulation. By improving memory performance during sleep, the proposed approach has the potential to
dramatically delay or prevent the onset of age-related cognitive decline. In the long run, the benefit of our system
may be further extended to slowing down progression of neurodegenerative disorders such AD and dementia.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10076067
- **Project number:** 1R43AG065104-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** DEEPWAVE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Giovanni Santostasi
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $222,900
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-30 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10076067

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10076067, Healthy Aging: an EEG-based wearable device to accurately monitor sleep and enhance quality for improved cognitive functioning (1R43AG065104-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10076067. Licensed CC0.

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