Patent ID: 6390979
Filing Date: 2002-05-21
Classification: A61B

Abstract:
A noninvasive method to determine the mental performance capacity of a human subject to perform a given task, including steps of:(a) obtaining a subject's baseline cerebral blood flow velocity in cerebral arteries on both sides of the brain using a transcranial Doppler ultrasound instrument with two probes placed on the temples and sample volumes focused on cerebral vessels on both sides; (b) simultaneously with (a) obtaining the mean blood flow velocity and calculating laterality index; (c) testing the subject with tasks of mental performance presented on the screen of a digital computer and using a computer input peripheral device while simultaneously monitoring the mean blood flow velocity during each stage of the task in real-time; (d) determining mental performance status using the laterality index calculated from mean cerebral blood flow velocity; (e) simultaneously with (d) assessing the task proficiency of the subject; (f) simultaneously with (e) determining the neurocognitive strategy of the subject during performance of the task; (g) simultaneously with (f) determining the change in neurocognitive strategy from prior measurements; (h) simultaneously with (g) determining if there is a corresponding rise in error rates during task performance; and (i) simultaneously with (h) assessing if the critical limit of neurocognitive workload has been reached.