The Brainclinics Foundation

Scientific research

Brainclinics was founded in 2001 as an independent research institute by dr. Martijn Arns and specializes in advancing our understanding of the brain; applied neuroscience to advance rTMS techniques, and ADHD and depression research. The results of our research are a valuable aid in the treatment and prevention of symptoms such as mood-, concentration-, impulse control-, and sleep problems, often seen in disorders such as depression, ADHD, and insomnia.

Forward thinking

Over the last 20 years, Brainclinics has pioneered the concept of Stratified Psychiatry, was one of the first to recognize the importance of the circadian clock and sleep problems underlying many symptoms like impaired concentration and impulse control, specifically in ADHD, while also pioneering and refining magnetic brain stimulation (rTMS) in the treatment of depression and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and in 2017 invented Neuro-Cardiac-Guided TMS to more specifically target the Frontal-Vagal network in Depression. In 2019 the legal structure was changed, and the non-profit Brainclinics Foundation was established.

Mission

The Brainclinics Foundation’s primary mission is best summarized as: Applied Neuroscience from the clinic, to the clinic. Therefore, the two pillars of the foundation are formed by the independent Research Institute Brainclinics and Brainclinics Insights (the publishing division).

Personalized medicine

At Research Institute Brainclinics researchers have published over 170 scientific publications on these and related topics and continue to collaborate with researchers and universities around the world ranging from Australia, Germany, Belgium, the United States to Colombia. A key topic of our research revolves around Stratfied Psychiatry and personalised medicine, going beyond the traditional ‘diagnostic-thinking’ and focusing on individual differences that can help optimize and individualize treatment and prevent symptoms from occurring, through the use of Biomarkers.

The NCG-TMS app for iOS

The Brainclinics Foundation developed Heart-Brain Connect, a breakthrough NCG-TMS app to assist clinicians in pinpointing the optimal location for rTMS treatment. Our unique approach has great advantages over more traditional methods and can be tried for free. The app can also be used as a resonant breathing training method.
For more information, please visit this page.
Heart-Brain Connect is available in the iOS App store.

Brainclinics Insights: Publishing and interactive media

Brainclinics Insights is the publishing division of our foundation. Its mission is to make the knowledge, expertise and especially ‘Insights’ gained through our research, widely available through books, PhD theses and interactive media. As an example, you can here find our latest documentary series titled ‘Pioneers of the EEG’ as well as various books and PhD-theses’ that are also published in the Apple bookstore. If you want to keep up-to-date, also make sure to follow our informative Youtube channel.

To serve the goal of the Brainclinics Foundation, all proceeds are fully invested into Research Institute Brainclinics and Brainclinics Insights, which creates an unprecedented synergy between these divisions and makes it possible to perform research and share new future insights into applied neuroscience as well.

At the Brainclinics Foundation, it is all about the research and its application!

Results

Our research has resulted in 4 patents and several spin-offs, such as Brainquiry, where the first ever wireless Bluetooth based EEG amplifier was developed in 2003 and the first wrist-worn heart-rate device in 2005 (nine years before Apple launched the Apple Watch with similar technology). Other spin-offs are Brainclinics Education, where specialistic applied neuroscience training courses were developed focused on rTMS, neurofeedback and QEEG, and Brainclinics Treatment, where our unequalled knowledge and expertise on personalized neuromodulation treatments are applied to benefit people worldwide. In 2015, Brainclinics Education and Brainclinics Treatment were acquired by the neuroCare Group, where courses are still taught by neuroCademy, and neuromodulation treatments that followed from Brainclinics Research are offered in >15 neuroCare clinics worldwide.

Independence

The most important pillar of our philosophy and mission is independence. Our non-profit foundation status ensures it is all about knowledge creation and content and our independence from companies and universities, but collaboration with companies and universitites ensures we conduct research independently and free of bias,  but is focused on clinical relevance, or as stated in our misison: Applied Neuroscience from the clinic, to the clinic!

The TDBRAIN Database

We are very happy to share a very large dataset, containing the anonymized EEG files of over 1200 subjects, that we accumulated over the past 20 years, as published in Nature Scientific Data, 2022 (The Two Decades – Brainclinics Research Archive for Insights in Neurophysiology (TDBRAIN) database, by our very own van Dijk et al.) For those interested in furthering our knowledge of the brain, and advancing scientific research in the field of neurobiology this is an invaluable asset. You can download it here: The TDBRAIN Dataset

Since the goal is to develop clinically actionable biomarkers, that should generalize to ‘unseen’ data, we have marked 30% of clinical and treatment outcome data as REPLICATION. These are blinded for prospective validation and replication purposes. Interested researchers can share () their diagnostic or treatment-outcome predictions on these REPLICATION data with us, so we can perform a ‘blinded out-of-sample’ validation for them, and post the results on this page, so that reviewers for journals can also consult this independent validation of their algorithms. Conversely, reviewers or editors faced with ‘too good to be true’ claims, can refer researchers to this resource, to perform validations and share them with us for verification and publication. We hope this will accelerate the discovery and validation of clinically actionable biomarkers that we hope will soon benefit patients and improve psychiatric and neurological care in the clinic.