NIH Funds Cutting-Edge mDOT Research
Emphasis on the research and development of artificial intelligence for wearables.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded $1.1M for the mDOT Center to continue developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) for wearables.
Set up as a national biomedical technology resource center (BTRC) and led by Dr. Santosh Kumar, director of the Center of Excellence for Mobile Sensor Data-to-Knowledge (MD2K) and Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence Professor in Computer Science , the mDOT Center works closely with 15-25 grant-funded projects to jointly develop, test, and deploy its novel wearables, apps, software, and research design tools to advance health research. The mDOT Center has recently turned its attention toward addressing an important health factor that often goes overlooked: Stress. According to the American Institute of Stress, more than 70% of individuals experience stress at a level that adversely impacts their physical or mental health. The mDOT Center recently developed, tested, and deployed a smartwatch app for stress tracking in a fully-virtual study called the MOODS (Mobile Open Observation of Daily Stressors) study. Over 100 participants from across the country have used the app to track their daily stress and stressors for up to 170 days without any ongoing or end-of-study financial compensation. Results from the study show that using the app substantially increased the chances of catching study participants in stressful moments.
The mDOT Center invites new collaborators who are interested in using the smartwatch-based MOODS stress app for designing, deploying, or evaluating new app-guided mHealth interventions to improve health outcomes. Investigators with currently active grants and those interested in pursuing new grants are both welcome. Together, we can develop the tools needed for individuals to take an active role in their mental health and well-being. If interested in exploring a collaboration, please email mdot@md2k.org.
About the mDOT Center: The mDOT Center was established in 2020 to develop wearable AI technology to enable the discovery, optimization, and real-life deployment of sensor-guided mHealth interventions. Composed of leading researchers in artificial intelligence for wearables from the University of Memphis (lead), Harvard, Georgia Tech, Ohio State, UMass-Amherst, and UCLA, the transdisciplinary mDOT team represents a unique national resource that is developing multiple methodological and technological innovations. The mDOT Center provides researchers with the necessary methods, tools, infrastructure, and training to discover, optimize, and deploy temporally-precise mHealth interventions. The mDOT Center is creating technological resources for the health research community that include easily deployable wearables, apps for wearables and smartphones, and a companion mHealth cloud system.
To ensure these innovations have a broad impact and solve real-world problems, the mDOT Center works with a growing number of collaborative projects to engage in joint technology developments. The Center also works with selected service projects who are well-equipped to become early adopters of the Center’s technologies. The current projects target stress, physical activity, weight loss, smoking cessation, oral health, cardiovascular health, and substance use. For more information on the mDOT Center, please go to https://mdotcenter.org.