That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bite - The Mendi

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

In this week's Neuroscience Bite, we discuss the Mendi - a new way to measure your brain while meditating at home.  

Hi, my name is Oliver Goulson and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. In my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another Neuroscience Byte. So a couple years ago, right around Christmas time, we did a sort of a neuroscientist gift guide, cool, cool toys that you could buy. They're neuroscience type things. And, um, we thought about redoing it this year, but there there's,

well, there's been some cool new advances. There haven't been enough for a full episode of the podcast, but there is one product that's been released that I find fascinating. And it, cause it's a, it's a way to measure brain activity that's been around for a while. But it's finally become commercial.

I'd call it. And that's called the Mendi. M E N D I. And the Mendi is a headband that you wear, but it's not measuring EEG. It's actually, actually measuring blood flow in the brain. So it uses a technique called functional near

infrared spectroscopy, FNIRS, and it's basically firing a beam of infrared light into your brain and it bounces off the blood within your brain. And we're able to measure changes in blood flow with this device. Now, the reason I'm bringing up is twofold. One, my PhD student, Catherine, who was on a previous episode about women in science, she's recently published a paper that validates the MENDY. This thing for a couple hundred dollars is doing what the hundred thousand dollar machines is doing, which I find fascinating. So I guess if you want to get something that actually works, the MENDY is a great thing. The other thing is the brain response is far more accurate. I love EEG or brainwaves.

It's kind of what I'm known for. But the reality is sometimes they tell you the truth and sometimes they don't. They can be very up and down and hard to process at times. But FNIRS is literally the change in blood flow in your brain. So when you get brain responses with the Mendi, you actually know that there's a change in brain activity for sure. And the Mendi app itself is designed just to help you control your brain function a little bit better. But it's a really cool toy.

And if nothing else, even if you don't want to buy one, I'd check out Mendi. There's a couple of videos on YouTube, M-E-N-D-I. Let's be clear here. I don't own any shares in the company. We got one, played around with it. And we're, whoa, this thing actually works. So there is a tip. You know, if you're the person that's looking for that little extra something and you're interested in neuroscience, check out Mendi.

It's kind of cool. And it's an accurate way to measure brain function. Anyway, that's all I've got. Check out the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. Thank you for listening to the podcast and thank you for listening to this bite. My name is Olive Krigolson and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon.