Artificial intelligence for the diagnosis of epilepsy
Created in 2023 in Toulouse, Avrio MedTech aims to improve the quality of life of patients suffering from drug-resistant epilepsy and to help their neurologists understand their disease, better localize the regions of the brain responsible for their seizures and identify the best treatment options for them, without the need for a seizure to occur during the monitoring period.
Epilepsy is a neurological disease that affects almost 1% of the world's population. Of these patients, about a third are drug resistant. The main solution to cure them is to surgically remove the brain area causing the seizures. To locate this area, the patient's brain signal is recorded using non-invasive (surface EEG) and sometimes invasive (intracerebral EEG) techniques. The size of this complex data is colossal to analyze for neurologists who can only do it in part, without the help of automated tools.
The third most widespread neurological disease, behind migraine and dementia, epilepsy can manifest itself with a wide variety of symptoms: attacks with convulsions, muscular rigidity, mood disorders, cognition, sleep, etc.
Avrio MedTech has developed Halyzia™, a patented AI-based solution that has been trained to recognize pathological oscillations, invisible to the naked eye, which characterize the epileptogenic zone. Post-processing of the oscillations detected by the A.I. through an algorithm designed by the team ensures the relevance of the results. For simple use, their tools are accessible via a clean and ergonomic user interface. For now, users can process the data for research purposes. When Halyzia™ obtains CE marking, neurologists will be able to process data from hospitalized patients, with a live updated summary indicating the events detected in different areas of the brain.
The solution is initially aimed at research centers dealing with intracerebral signals, then at the 400 neurology centers based in Europe and North America which carry out intracerebral exploration of epileptic patients. (medical devices and drugs), by offering them quantitative analysis services of EEG data, allowing them to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of treatments. The technological improvements planned for the next two years will make it possible to address new markets, in particular that of non-invasive explorations to reach nearly 40,000 additional centers in Europe and North America.
Avrio MedTech is a spin-off from the CNRS (Brain and Cognition Research Center – CerCo, epilepsy research) and ENAC (data visualization and XAI group) within which the initial technology was developed . Karine Seymour, confirmed entrepreneur, joined researchers Christophe Hurter (ENAC) and Emmanuel Barbeau (CNRS) to create the startup Avrio MedTech.
In order to industrialize this innovation crowned during a Bpifrance competition, the researchers benefited from pre-maturation support via the Doc d'Occitanie program supported by the SATT (Society for Acceleration of Technological Transfer) Toulouse Tech Transfer and the Region, support via the RISE and RISE UP programs operated by CNRS Innovation and a maturation program supported by Toulouse Tech Transfer.
The company is a winner of the French Tech Emergence Grant (Bpifrance), of Créalia Occitanie, as well as of the European call for projects DESIRE (Development of E-Health Solutions Improving Resilience in Europe). It is also supported by Caisse d’Epargne Midi-Pyrénées and Crédit Coopératif.
The company is a Social and Solidarity Economy company. It plans to hire 6 employees by the end of the year.