Summary:
UCLA researchers in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences have created a novel assessment platform that objectively measures how the brain, body, and autonomic nervous system respond to stress and regulate emotion during real-time movement. By integrating a shear-stress–based neurovascular framework with a polyvagal-informed autonomic model, the system quantifies neuromuscular performance, cardiovascular adaptability, and emotional regulation capacity through functional movement analysis. This unified approach provides a precise, physiology-anchored window into mental-health–related resilience and vulnerability—offering clinicians an objective mental-health assessment platform.
Background: Mental-health assessments today rely overwhelmingly on self-report questionnaires and subjective clinical impressions, leaving a critical need for objective, physiology-based indicators of stress, autonomic function, and emotional regulation. Meanwhile, emerging neurovascular science shows that shear stress—the mechanical force of blood flow on endothelial and glial cells—governs moment-to-moment shifts between nitric-oxide–dominant (eNOS) states linked to resilience and reactive-oxygen–species–dominant (eROS) states associated with cellular stress, inflammation, and dysregulation.
In parallel, functional-movement research demonstrates that torque patterns, postural sequencing, and coordination provide a sensitive readout of autonomic load and behavioral reactivity. Yet no current assessment tool brings together these rapidly advancing domains: eNOS/eROS neurovascular physiology, autonomic signaling, and torque-based movement analytics. As a result, clinicians lack an objective method to quantify neurovascular plasticity, cellular stress capacity, and body–mind integration during movement—factors that are deeply relevant to mental-health conditions but invisible to traditional evaluations. A scalable, clinically usable solution that bridges these gaps remains an unmet need in modern psychiatry.
Innovation: Professor Naser Ahmadi and his team have developed the first functional-movement biomarker system that unifies shear-stress neurovascular modeling with a polyvagal-adapted autonomic framework to infer psychological state through biomechanical expression. This proprietary system measures internal and external torque dynamics, neuromuscular flow, and autonomic reactivity while tracking coordination, maximal output, balance, speed, and exertion during structured movement tasks.
By embedding physiological markers that correspond to eNOS resilience states and eROS cellular-stress states, the platform generates a multidimensional profile of an individual's neurovascular and autonomic capacity. Advanced joint kinematics, torque-mapping algorithms, optical-flow analysis, and flow-capacity metrics feed into the Mental Health Functional Movement Scale (MH-FMS), enabling precise identification of neuromuscular signatures associated with psychiatric conditions. This innovation represents a major leap forward in mental-health assessment—transforming mental state, autonomic function, and physical movement into quantifiable, actionable data for diagnosis, treatment stratification, and longitudinal outcome tracking. The MH-FMS enables clinicians to evaluate key physiological markers through an integrated neuromuscular performance score, revealing disorder-specific patterns of resilience and vulnerability. This objective profiling supports more accurate identification of neuropsychiatric neuromuscular deficits and guides targeted interventions and preventive strategies to strengthen body–mind wellbeing. Potential Applications: ● Mental health diagnostics and classification ● Screening for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and neurodevelopmental disorders ● Tracking treatment responses to movement-based therapies ● Early detection of neurovascular or neuromuscular dysfunction ● Physical therapy and rehabilitation autonomic-neuromuscular assessments
Advantages: ● Stabilizes movement and improves inter-joint coordination ● Promotes neuromuscular and cardiovascular recovery ● Enhances self-regulation flexibility, resilience, and emotional stability ● Supports learning, memory formation, and body-mind connectedness ● Improves cardiovascular, muscular, and neurovascular neuroplasticity ● Provides objective metrics for mental health assessments
State of Development: Prototype in development.
Related Publications: ● VOLUME 62, ISSUE 10, SUPPLEMENT, S229, OCTOBER 2023 The Pilot Study of Reminder-Focused Positive Psychiatry Body-Mind Intervention on Improving Heart Rate Variability and Autonomous Nervous System Reactivity in Individuals With PTSD, Naser Ahmadi, MD, PhD, Mike Ramirez, LCSW, Ma'ayan Epstein, BS, Julien Pineau, Robert S. Pynoos, MDDOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2023.09.235
Reference: UCLA Case No. 2025-021
Lead Inventor: Naser Ahmadi, Faculty, Department of Psychiatry/Biobehavioral Sciences