Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX March/April 2003

COVER STORY

Remote physiological monitoring systems have been a NASA mainstay since even before the days of manned space flight. Transmitted to earth, the telemetry from such monitors enables flight surgeons to keep tabs on the health and performance of astronauts even when they are in space for months at a time.

But even for NASA, the autogenic feedback training exercise (AFTE) system represents a distinctly different application for physiological monitoring.

Drs. Mae Jemison (left) and Patricia Cowings inspect BioSentient's version of the ambulatory monitoring garment for the autogenic feedback training exercise (AFTE) system. A researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, Cowings is the inventor of the AFTE system.

Developed by Patricia Cowings, PhD, at NASA's Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, CA), the AFTE system was originally created to help astronauts adapt to space and avoid the symptoms of space sickness. The system monitors a subject's physiological responses to outside stimuli—such as motion or stress—and can be used to help subjects eliminate or minimize unwanted responses by controlling their autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is responsible for controlling and regulating involuntary body functions such as breathing, heartbeat, sweating, blood vessel dilation, and glandular secretions.

Hardware for the system includes an ambulatory physiological monitoring garment that uses transducers to detect physiological signals and a wrist-worn unit to provide feedback to the user. System software can directly measure and display physiological responses in real time, and feed them to both the subject and the trainer.

But the heart of the system is a 6- to 12-hour training program that enables subjects to become adept at using the system and controlling their own physiological responses to a variety of environmental stresses. "What were previously considered involuntary, or autonomic, responses are in fact under voluntary control if you are taught properly," says Cowings. "I have never met anyone who could not control their bodily responses to some degree the first time they tried. It's a function of knowing what to do."

Training scenario for the AFTE system.

In 2001, NASA licensed its patented technology to The Jemison Group (Houston), a commercial venture of former astronaut Mae C. Jemison, MD, who used the AFTE technology during her 1992 space shuttle flight. Jemison's new company, BioSentient Corp. (Houston), was established specifically to develop and commercialize the AFTE technology.

"BioSentient is examining AFTE as a treatment for anxiety, nausea, migraine and tension headaches, chronic pain, hypertension and hypotension, and stress-related disorders," says Jemison. Potential beneficiaries of the AFTE technology include those in a wide range of occupations where "optimal personal performance and situational awareness are essential," she adds.

Jemison says that she expects BioSentient's much-modernized version of the AFTE system to be commercially available this summer.

Copyright ©2003 MX