MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Massachusetts researchers developed a smartphone app that doctors may be able to use to monitor neurological activity on the go.

The app may make a big splash among sports doctors who need to keep an eye on the health of athletes at risk of traumatic brain injury.

Doctors can use the app to administer a simple test in which the patient must follow the path of a moving dot with a stylus. An algorithm determines the deviation from the correct path and corrects for age, sex and handedness to provide doctors a view into the brain.

"This new tool may hold great potential to augment existing protocols in a doctor’s neuromotor assessment toolbox," Wyss senior staff engineer Leia Stirling said in prepared remarks. "It is portable, repeatable, quick to administer, and easy to perform."

"One day it might sit next to the thermometer and pressure cuff in the doctor’s office," Stirling added.

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