SyncThink, a Boston-based applying VR and eye-tracking to assess ability to focus as an indicator of concussion damage, has launched the next generation of its FDA-cleared EYE-SYNC platform.

“Concussion is the most underreported, underdiagnosed, and underestimated type of brain trauma,” CEO Ernest Santin said in a statement. “There is no universally accepted, evidence-based definition of concussion and that’s the reason EYE-SYNC is so important to the health of athletes, soldiers, and patients alike. Through over 10 years of clinical research, and obtaining 10 patents, our team at SyncThink has worked tirelessly to do our part to move brain health and performance into an objective space with the EYE-SYNC technology.”

SyncThink uses infrared cameras to track a patient’s eye movements to assess the extent of the damage immediately after an injury, or to track recovery practice with an objective measure. The company has been working on eye tracking or concussions for about 10 years but only recently began to incorporate VR. It has a partnership with the US Army, as well as customer relationships with a number of sports organizations.

“Eye tracking’s not new; it’s been around for about 30 years in all kinds of configurations,” CTO Daniel Beeler told MobiHealthNews in a recent interview. “We thought about two and a half years ago that VR is the perfect way to commercialize this in a cost-effective way and bring it to market. Eye-tracking has traditionally been the domain of large instruments in laboratory settings. The thing about VR is it’s a cost-effective way to introduce a mobile platform with eye-tracking.”

The new version of the platform adds a few things. It takes into account vestibular balance dysfunction in a way that the previous version did not, adds the latest version of the Sports Concussion Assessment  Tool, and includes a cloud-connected, HIPAA compliant analytics platform. The device is also now entirely mobile and wireless.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, SyncThink’s chief scientific advisor and founder, said in a statement that objective measurement is especially important in sports medicine, where players can be so eager to get back into the game that they don’t self-report reliably.

“There is no way to cheat this technology to convince medical professionals that you aren’t injured when you are, and that’s a giant step to making athletes safer,” Ghajar said. “We have to be able to access objective information to make clinical decisions regarding brain health and this next generation of EYE-SYNC delivers just that.”