A new study published in the journal eLife lays out findings from Professor Noam Sobel's lab, which indicate that women who suffer repeated, unexplained miscarriages perceive a man's body scent different than other women.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Women were divided into two groups – those who had undergone unexplained miscarriages and those who had not. Researchers found that women in the first group were able to pick out their partner's body scent from a group of other men's scents. The women who had undergone unexplained miscarriages also had slightly better senses of smell than women in the control group.

Additionally, not only were women from the first group better able to identify their partner's body scents, they also perceived the body scent of males in general differently than women in the control group.

"It's possible that doctors aren't finding an explanation for these miscarriages because they're looking in the wrong place – they are checking the reproductive system, whereas the [right] direction might be the nervous system, particularly the part of the brain that detects smells," said Reut Weisgross, who led the research along with Dr. Liron Rosenkrantz and Dr. Tali Weiss.

The post Study: Unexplained miscarriages could be linked to smell appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The wearable Epiness device, whose technology is based on machine-learning algorithms and EEG-based monitoring of brain activity, can generate an advanced warning about an upcoming seizure that will be sent to a user's smartphone up to an hour prior to its onset.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The algorithms are designed to filter noise that is not related to brain activity, extract informative measures of the underlying brain dynamics, and distinguish between brain activity before an expected epileptic seizure and brain activity when a seizure is not expected to occur.

Up to 30% of epilepsy patients do not adequately respond to anti-epileptic drugs. For such patients, a viable seizure prediction device could offer a substantial improvement in quality of life, enabling them to avoid seizure-related injuries. Current seizure alarm devices can detect a seizure in real time but are unable to provide advanced warnings of impending seizures.

The system has out-licensed for further development and commercialization to NeuroHelp, a startup company that was recently founded by BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of BGU, and Dr. Oren Shriki of BGU's Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, who is also NeuroHelp's scientific founder.

"Epileptic seizures expose epilepsy patients to various preventable hazards, including falls, burns and other injuries," Shriki said.

"Unfortunately, currently there are no seizure-predicting devices that can alert patients and allow them to prepare for upcoming seizures. We are therefore very excited that the machine-learning algorithms that we developed enable accurate prediction of impending seizures up to one hour prior to their occurrence. Since we have also shown that our algorithms enable a significant reduction in the number of necessary EEG electrodes, the device we are developing is both accurate and user friendly. We are currently developing a prototype that will be assessed in clinical trials later this year," Shikri added.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Wearable device from BGU startup could be game-changer for epileptics appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.