NeuroSense wins Rep. Virginia Foxx’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in North Carolina’s Fifth District

When asked what inspired the creation of NeuroSense, the students said, “Currently, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s is a long process requiring multiple appointments and the involvement of specialists, which can be prohibitive for older adults with limited funds or mobility. According to research published in 2021 by Rossi, Perez-Lloret, and Merello on the estimated time it takes to reach a diagnosis for Parkinson’s Disease, the diagnostic process takes about 2.75 years in 95% of the patients they studied. Furthermore, according to research by Michele Tinazzi and others (also published in 2021), the average annual cost for diagnosis of Parkinson’s is $3,000, to say nothing of the cost of treatment that follows. These monetary and nonmonetary costs often lead to many patients suffering from late-stage symptoms by the time of diagnosis, with many more never being diagnosed at all due to high costs.

“While researching more into the problem, we found something interesting: some of the earliest signs of Parkinson’s appear in the voice. Slight changes in pitch, tremors, and jitters in the voice come before many of the well-known motor symptoms. By training a machine learning model to detect these tremors and jitters in the voice, we thought that it would be possible to detect Parkinson’s before more dangerous signs appear via a simple test.

“Additionally, we wanted to make an accessible way for people to quickly see if they should pursue a diagnosis that requires no payment and is as easy as a short voice recording. We hope our app will contribute to early recognition of Parkinson’s, which will improve outcomes for patients as well as aid in research efforts by allowing for study before excessive neurodegeneration, letting us help current and future patients simultaneously.”