Ryan D'Arcy

Foundational research that led to the concept of brain vital signs started in 1995, with Dr. D’Arcy leading the development of the first rapid, easy, point-of-care measurement of brain waves in 2011.[11] The objective was to utilize electroencephalography (EEG) data, and particularly cognitive evoked potentials (EPs), also known as event-related potentials (ERPs), as an objective physiological measure of brain function. ERPs were well established but had not been translated into a clinically accessible framework in a manner similar to the measurement of a body's vital signs like blood pressure.[5] D’Arcy’s team developed a new brain vital sign[1] framework specific to the evaluation and monitoring of brain function. The brain vital signs framework, which derived from the earlier Halifax Consciousness Scanner work, objectively analyze complex EEG data, which then provides simple and objective physiological markers of brain function.[1]

The research team subsequently published a series of studies on the development of brain vital signs. These included the Frontiers in Neuroscience Journal, which remains the most highly accessed paper in the journal's history and ranked in the top 5% of research outputs scored by Altmetrics,[1] and findings from a multi-year hockey concussion study conducted in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center in Brain: A Journal of Neurology.[12] The latter study was the first to demonstrate that brain vital sign monitoring is more sensitive in detecting impairments than existing clinical tests for concussions.

In 2013, D’Arcy and Kirk Fisher co-founded HealthTech Connex Inc. Derived from the brain vital sign science, HealthTech Connex conceived the NeuroCatch Platform to convert electroencephalography recordings (EEG) of the N100 (Auditory sensation), P300 (Basic attention), and N400 (Cognitive processing) into a rapid, portable, non-invasive evaluation platform for point-of-care deployment.

D'Arcy also co-founded the Health and Technology District with Lark Group, a Canadian family-owned and operated development, construction and facility management company based in Surrey, British Columbia. The Health and Technology District is a rapidly growing and dynamic new health tech sector located in the heart of Surrey’s emerging innovation ecosystem.[13] The District includes a series of high-tech buildings located and under expansion, directly adjacent to Surrey Memorial Hospital, one of Canada's busiest hospitals.[14]

The District is a unique cluster of large, multinational and start-up companies, international partners, clinical and research facilities, scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs. It is also where an abundance of healthcare environments, patients and clinicians are co-located, working in partnership to accelerate the implementation of technologies and solutions towards health care impacts and improvements.

The Lark Group developed the Health and Technology District in anticipation of the rapidly growing health and technology sector in British Columbia. The District currently consists of three buildings, City Centre 1, 2,[15] and 3,[16] with the largest City Centre 4 breaking ground in 2022 and is slated to be completed in 2025.[17]

In 2019, D'Arcy spearheaded the formation of BrainNET within the Health and Technology District, a clinical-academic-innovation network dedicated to bringing advances in neuro-technologies to individual improvements in brain health through a consortium of initiatives and technologies.

D’Arcy has been credited in helping translate neuroscience advances into real-life impacts.

In the early 1990s, using functional MRI to detect white matter was considered controversial, despite it being traditionally used for gray brain matter. Dr. D’Arcy and a team of researchers set out to investigate white matter fMRI activation, and published a number of studies with evidence to support using fMRI for white matter activation. These studies opened up fundamental avenues to explore functional connectivity in distributed neural networks, which has since been used to advance understanding of white matter dysfunction in neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.[18]

Since 1995, D’Arcy and his research team have led the development of using event-related potentials (ERPs) for clinical evaluations of brain function. In 2010, they developed the Halifax Consciousness Scanner (HCS), a portable ERP device that quickly determines neurological function in cases of severe brain trauma.[19] The HCS technology was widely recognized with several innovation awards, including the 2015 Winner of Wall Street Journal’s Global Technology Start-up Showcase.[20] While developed for functional status evaluation, the HCS prototype ultimately led to the discovery of the brain vital signs framework, which has since led the development the NeuroCatch Platform through HealthTech Connex. The NeuroCatch Platform received its first regulator approval as a Class II Medical Device from Health Canada in early 2019.[21]

In 2008, together with neuroscientist and neurosurgeon Dr. David B. Clarke, D'Arcy was part of the research team at the National Research Council at Dalhousie University in developing the world's first virtual reality based neurosurgical simulation and rehearsal tool NeuroTouch, which was subsequently licensed to CAE Inc. as NeuroVR.[22][23][24] Subsequently, D'Arcy and Clarke teamed up again, this time with Conquer Mobile to develop PeriopSim, a suite of portable surgical simulation training tools used to train perioperative nurses.[25]

D’Arcy was involved with Simon Fraser University's rapid growth in medical technology research, one component of which is the launch of the ImageTech Lab.[26] The SFU ImageTechLab is a first-of-its-kind research facility in Western Canada, combining state-of-the-art imaging devices to advance brain/body research, and focus on advanced diagnostics and treatment in neurology, mental health and other healthcare areas. The ImageTech Lab completed the large-scale initiative announced April 2013 by then City of Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts to create the Mayor's Health Technology Working Group with D’Arcy as co-chair. It composed of leaders from the health, education, and development communities to shape a new health-tech region located between Simon Fraser University Surrey and Surrey Memorial Hospital called Innovation Boulevard.[7]

Since 2009, D’Arcy has been helping rehabilitate Trevor Greene, a Canadian war veteran and brain injury survivor who was attacked while on tour in Afghanistan with an axe to the head.[27] D'Arcy, together with Trevor and his wife Debbie Greene, have used different modalities to support recovery through the use of brain imaging, assistive device, and neuromodulation technologies paired with intensive rehabilitation.[28][29] The project (called “Iron Soldier”) has since progressed towards Trevor's goal to climb to the Mount Everest base camp, and catalyzed the Legion Veteran's Village initiative to revitalize Legions across the country into centres for excellence in rehabilitation and post-traumatic stress disorder.[30]

D’Arcy and his research team at HealthTech Connex Inc. and the Surrey Neuroplasticity Clinic in Surrey, B.C., continued to help Greene with intensive daily rehabilitation, but the team experienced an extended plateau in progress using conventional therapy alone. To break through the plateau, the research team launched an intensive 14-week study using the Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator (or PoNS™), in combination with physical therapy to safely stimulate novel neuroplasticity and tracked brain vital sign improvements using the NeuroCatch® Platform (or NeuroCatch®). The peer-reviewed study on Capt. Greene’s physical, cognitive and PTSD improvements was published in September 2020 in the Frontiers of Human Neuroscience,[31] demonstrating that the PoNS neurostimulation, paired with intensive rehabilitation, may stimulate neuroplasticity to overcome an extended recovery plateau in this case as objectively measured by NeuroCatch and other brain scanning technologies.[32]

Dr. Ryan D'Arcy and Iron Soldier Trevor Greene speak at TedXBearCreekPark

As a thought leader, university professor and international speaker, Dr. D’Arcy speaks frequently to large audiences and has done so extensively over the course of his career. He has focused on communicating technology and scientific advances outside of academic and technical scientific forums. He is a 3-times TEDx speaker including Surrey’s TEDxBearCreekPark,[33] TEDxSFU and TEDxBrentwoodCollegeSchool, and has frequently represented Canada in health technology innovation events throughout the world, including leading brain technology missions around the world for over a decade.[34]