- Home
- Sustainability
- Materiality for the Ricoh Group
- Approach to Materiality (Material issues)
Approach to Materiality (Material issues)Aspiring to contribute to the visualization of brain functions by brain activity imaging testing equipment
Community and Social Development
Background and issues
Epilepsy and dementia develop as a result of brain lesions. Unlike in the case of a cerebral stroke or brain tumor, however, these lesions may not show up in CT or MRI scans because epilepsy and dementia are diseases related to brain functions.
Treating the diseases requires tests to observe the functioning of the brain. It is also an essential prerequisite that complex brain functioning be elucidated. What is most important in the treatment of these diseases is an examination by a doctor with expertise. To support such doctors, several tests are used in combination.
Serving the social good through business
Ricoh has developed RICOH MEG (magnetoencephalography), a brain activity imaging system that captures slight changes in the magnetic field in the brain to analyze brain functions. Ricoh aims to contribute to elucidating brain function as a partner that supports the progress of clinical and scientific research. To this end, we are meeting the needs of brain function analysis and imaging in many clinical, basic and applied brain science research disciplines.
In January 2019, we initiated a brain functional checkup research project in partnership with Hokuto Hospital, which is conducting research on a benchmark brain function database using the magnetoencephalography system, in cooperation with nine overseas universities. The database will be required for technologies used to provide more objective diagnosis and forecasting of prognosis for patients as part of precision medicine. By linking Ricoh’s brain imaging system with the research effort, Ricoh strives to open up a new market of brain checkups focused on brain functioning through contributing to the improvement of technologies to diagnose dementia.