About us
BlinkLab is a smartphone-based software platform for neurobehavioral testing. Requiring only an iPhone and headphones, this tool enables accessible and scalable neurobehavioral testing unlike past methods that required laboratory-bound equipment and facial instruments. These neurobehavioral tests have been pivotal in neuroscience research and include for example prepulse inhibition, which measures the brain’s ability to perform sensorimotor gating, and startle habituation, which assesses the brain’s ability to dampen responses to repetitive stimuli. Automated tracking technology allows us to quantify these sensory phenotypes as well as quantify motor behaviour while participants watch a short video on the BlinkLab application. BlinkLab’s current goal is to be used as a diagnostic tool to aid in objective and earlier identification of autism. This is especially important as currently only subjective measures are available for health care professionals to make an autism diagnosis. Furthermore, diagnoses are typically made around five years of age thus missing early windows for potential effective interventions.