Towards neurobehavioral biomarkers for longitudinal monitoring of neurodegeneration with wearable body sensor networks

This study focuses on the objective quantification of the disease progression in patients with Friedreich´s Ataxia (FRDA) through the use of kinematic body sensor network technology. Currently, this quantification is performed through a series of task-oriented score-based metrics, which, although they provide an efficient way of quantifying the ataxic disease, they are dependent on the assessor´s experience and they also present high levels of variability. We used our ETHO1 inertial motion capturing sensors for longitudinal monitoring of FRDA patients during sleep and we collected behavioural timeseries from which we extracted biomarkers that can objectively highlight the subtle changes of patients´ motor control system. These biomarkers exhibit trends consistent with the clinical assessments of the disease.