Brian Lithgow is the world leader in EVestG technology and recording. He is building a new facility at Laval University to study Adolescent Schizophrenia for Prof Marquette. The biggest challenge to availing EVestG to the masses is miniaturization. Recently we have improved the signal-to-noise ratio of the recordings by about 11dB using a variety of signal processing and electrode positioning techniques (Kumaragamage et. al. 2015, 2016). I have shown static (no motion) EVestG recording hold the potential for enabling the removal of the current hydraulic tilt chair. Second, the current encasing anechoic chamber can be replaced by a prototype shielded headset used for portable EVestG recording. The fabrication of intelligent active recording electrodes incorporating amplifiers and filters in the electrode is being explored. Brian founded the Monash University Centre for Biomedical Engineering (MUCBE) and was the Director of Teaching for MUCBE from 2001-2010. He is also currently the Leader of the Diagnostic and Neurosignal Processing Research Groups at the Alfred Hospital (Melbourne Australia) and Riverview Health Centre, Winnipeg Canada. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Hospital wherein there was a fully equipped research laboratory “The Diagnostic and Neurosignal Processing Research Laboratory”. Lastly, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba Canada where he has established in collaboration with Prof Zahra Moussavi a second Diagnostic and Neurosignal Processing Research Laboratory at the Riverview Health Centre campus. A third collaborative laboratory is being established at Laval University.

His Neurodiagnostic research has attracted two ARC linkage grants (>$350,000), one NHMRC grant ($116,000), 5 funded scholarships, Monash University commercialization funding exceeding $100,000, industry cash funding exceeding $220,000 and one ARC small grant ($12,000). A Government Comet grant for commercializing this research has been recently awarded for $76,000. Three international and one PCT Patents have been generated/applied for and two companies formed to commercialize his neuro-diagnostics research. Approximately $6M has been spent towards advancing his EVestG research. Most recently, MITACS-Cluster Accelerate MPI partnership, “Concussion Treatment and Monitoring“, (PI with Z.Moussavi, 2015) ca$240,000. In 2017 a CRC-P $2.2M Australian Government was awarded for mTBI EVestG and MRI research.

He has published a total of 181 publications including 5 patents, 2 book chapters, 6 books, 66 peer-reviewed full journal papers, 8 Journal abstracts, 79 peer-reviewed conference papers, and 14 abstracts. I invented EVestG recording. I am mostly recognized for my work on vestibular, respiratory and acoustic signal processing and its application to cochlear implants and disease detection in particular, Depression (Bipolar and Major depressive disorders and their separation in the depressive phase), Parkinson’s Disease (LDopa monitoring), Dementia (subtype detection, prediction of rTMS treatment efficacy and physiological comorbidity detection), Auditory/Vestibular system modelling and Post-Concussion Syndrome diagnosis and treatment. I have given many invited talks at national and international conferences. My most recent work relates to using EVestG measurements to quantitatively detect Anxiety in bipolar depression patients and secondly the impact of groupwise effects of anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and mood stabilizers on that anxiety measure.

EVestG. (Inventor)
I am currently the world leader in EVestG technology and recording. I am building a new facility at Laval University to study Adolescent Schizophrenia for Prof Marquette. The biggest challenge to availing EVestG to the masses is miniaturization. Recently we have improved the signal-to-noise ratio of the recordings by about 11dB using a variety of signal processing and electrode positioning techniques (Kumaragamage et. al. 2015, 2016). I have shown static (no motion) EVestG recording hold the potential for enabling the removal of the current hydraulic tilt chair. Second, the current encasing anechoic chamber can be replaced by a prototype shielded headset used for portable EVestG recording. The fabrication of intelligent active recording electrodes
incorporating amplifiers and filters in the electrode is being explored.

Dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Detection, sub typing and Treatment prediction

I have investigated the detection and subtype classification of Dementia in particular AD and AD with cerebrovascular symptomatology (ADcvd). In Lithgow et. al., 2021a we show first that AD is clearly discernable from controls then that the presence of cerebrovascular symptomatology (CVD) is clearly discernable in AD patients using Electrovestibulography (EVestG) technology. This is considered important as I hypothesize that the rTMS treatment efficacy of AD patients may be influenced by CVD. In Lithgow et. al., 2021b we show that we can blind predict the efficacy at baseline of rTMS applied to AD patients with an accuracy >77%. In doing so
we recognized that the comorbidities of Depression and Anxiety likely play a role in treatment efficacy. EVestG can measure depression and detect anxiety circuit activity and the broad impact of medication groups on those anxiety circuits (latest publication submission). The anxiety circuit activity is most effectively suppressed by Mood Stabilizer group medications.  

Depression: Separating Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) from the depressive phase of Bipolar Disorder (BD).
I have shown using EVestG we can quantitatively measure MDD (Lithgow et. al., 2015) and BD (Lithgow et. al.,
2018) and identify them from each other when BD is in the depressive phase (Lithgow et. al., 2019). This bodes
well for the detection of depression as a comorbidity as in AD.