Interim data show high adherence and usability for remote, multimodal brain monitoring in borderline personality disorder and therapy-resistant depression, and a two-minute digital cognitive task performing comparably to clinical benchmarks for Alzheimer's trial pre-enrichment.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- First Published: 16 September, 2026
Cumulus Neuroscience presented three posters at the International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) Autumn Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two of the studies were conducted in collaboration with a top 20 pharma company and academic partners; the third is an encore presentation of work first shown at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) 2026 in London on 15 July.
Traditional clinical trials for disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) are long, costly and can be burdensome for participants. The NeuLogiq® Platform was purpose-built by Cumulus in collaboration with 10 top biopharma companies to generate objective, clinical-quality data through frequent, repeated digital measurements collected in the clinic or in the home. Together, the three posters presented at ISCTM address a common question: whether patients across very different CNS indications will engage with high-frequency digital measurement, and whether the resulting data are good enough to change how trials are designed.
The first poster titled, "Usability and adherence to remote, longitudinal assessment of EEG, cognition, mood and sleep in Borderline Personality Disorder," reported interim data from a study conducted with a top 20 pharma company and a UK-based academic partner. Clinical trials in borderline personality disorder (BPD) frequently fail to demonstrate efficacy, in part because participants improve across all treatment arms and because symptom variability is poorly captured by infrequent clinic visits. The seven-week observational study recruited 51 participants (31 patients with BPD, 20 healthy controls) and deployed multiple digital measures including NeuLogiq Platform EEG and cognitive assessment, wrist-worn actigraphy and twice-daily mood ratings. Requested engagement with the NeuLogiq Platform alternated between high- and low-intensity phases to test relative acceptability, while requested engagement with the actigraphy and mood measures remained constant throughout.
Interim analysis of 47 participants found mean adherence to NeuLogiq cognitive and EEG sessions above 85% in the BPD cohort across every phase of the study, alongside median mood-assessment adherence of approximately 90%. System Usability Scale scores averaged 82.2 at onboarding and 80.2 at debrief, indicating excellent usability with no additional difficulty for patients relative to controls. Adherence data for the wrist-worn actigraphy measures were still being analysed at the time of submission. The authors concluded that the combined digital approach is broadly acceptable and usable in this population, and that adherence at this level meets a baseline prerequisite for clinical trials designed around lower clinical contact and higher measurement frequency.
The second poster titled, "Assessing neuroplasticity and cognition with a portable platform throughout esketamine treatment for therapy-resistant depression," reported interim data from an ongoing study conducted with a top 20 pharma company and an EU-based academic medical centre. The single-centre, parallel-group study will enroll 54 patients with therapy-resistant major depressive disorder, randomised with respect to observation timeframe rather than to treatment: one group is observed during esketamine initiation and the other during the clinically indicated waiting period beforehand, with all patients continuing standard antidepressant treatment. Across a 22-day window, four structured in-clinic visits — including visually evoked potential (VEP) modulation, auditory steady-state response and resting-state EEG — are combined with twice-daily at-home cognitive and mood assessments on a dedicated tablet.
In an interim analysis of 15 data-complete participants, 98.7% of in-clinic sessions and 90.5% of scheduled at-home behavioural sessions were completed and yielded analysable data, after accounting for technical issues and non-compliance. Mean System Usability Scale score was 88.5 and patient-reported burden for at-home assessments was minimal. The authors concluded that repeated cognitive and neurophysiological assessment using a portable platform is highly feasible and well tolerated in therapy-resistant depression, and that the observation-window randomisation allows the effects of esketamine on neuroplasticity and cognition to be captured within a naturalistic clinical context. Final results are anticipated in Q3 2027.
The third poster titled, "A two-minute digital cognitive task as a pre-enrichment screening method for Alzheimer's disease trials," was an encore presentation of data first reported at AAIC 2026 in London. The work evaluated a symbol-coding task (Symbol Swap), a two-minute tablet-based NeuLogiq Platform task, across three independent studies — CNS-101, Fastball i4i and BioHermes-2 — in collaboration with the University of Bath and the University of Bristol. The pooled analysis covered approximately 1,280 participants assessed at more than 25 sites in three countries and three languages, using both autonomous at-home and assisted in-clinic administration.
Across the three studies, Symbol Swap discriminated between control, MCI and Alzheimer's dementia groups comparably to established clinical screeners that require 20 to 45 minutes of clinician time, in just two minutes and with substantially less participant and site burden. On the pre-enrichment question itself it outperformed those benchmarks, showing stronger associations with biomarker-defined Alzheimer's pathology (blood plasma p-tau217) than the clinical comparators, including in cognitively unimpaired individuals where the benchmark performed close to chance — suggesting it could flag those most likely to be amyloid- or tau-positive and improve the efficiency of downstream plasma, PET or CSF screening. Digitally administered and automatically scored, Symbol Swap scales readily across large, multi-site trials in both in-clinic and at-home workflows, making it an attractive first-line enrichment filter with the potential to cut screen-failure rates and accelerate recruitment into Alzheimer's trials.
"What these three posters share is evidence that patients will engage with frequent digital measurement — and engage well," said Brian Murphy, PhD, Cumulus Co-Founder and CSO. "In borderline personality disorder and in therapy-resistant depression, two populations where trial designs have long been constrained by what can realistically be asked of participants, we saw adherence and usability scores that would support studies built around lower clinical contact and much higher measurement frequency. Alongside that, our Alzheimer's work shows how much signal a well-designed two-minute task can carry. Taken together, these data point toward CNS trials that are shorter, smaller and less burdensome, without giving up sensitivity."
Cumulus supports precision in CNS clinical trials for its industry partners by enabling in-clinic and remote monitoring of patients across multiple domains of brain function. To learn more, visit www.cumulusneuro.com.
About Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
BPD is a mental health condition characterised by instability in mood, self-image and relationships, alongside marked impulsivity. Symptoms typically emerge in adolescence or early adulthood and fluctuate considerably over short timescales, which makes the condition difficult to assess with infrequent clinic-based measurement. There are currently no approved pharmacological treatments for BPD.
About Therapy-Resistant Depression
Major depressive disorder (MDD) affects an estimated 5% of adults worldwide. A substantial proportion of patients do not respond adequately to two or more courses of antidepressant treatment, a presentation described as treatment- or therapy-resistant depression. Esketamine is one of a small number of options approved for this population, and is thought to act in part by enhancing synaptic plasticity.
About Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
Alzheimer's is a progressive disease that affects brain function, memory and other cognitive abilities. It is the most common cause of dementia, affecting millions of people worldwide. Symptoms usually develop slowly and worsen over time, including memory loss, confusion, difficulty with language and communication, mood swings, and changes in behaviour and personality. While there is no known cure, there are currently over one hundred Alzheimer's disease clinical trials underway.
About Cumulus Neuroscience
With a mission to generate the data and insights required to accelerate diagnosis and management of central nervous system (CNS) disorders for millions of patients and caregivers around the world, Cumulus Neuroscience is advancing NeuLogiq®, an AI-based, multi-domain digital biomarker platform to enable better, faster decision making in neurology and neuropsychiatry clinical trials and patient care. Designed for and with 10 of the world's leading pharma companies, the platform enables decentralized trials and is already making a difference in the development of therapies for Alzheimer's Disease, depression and schizophrenia.
SOURCE Cumulus Neuroscience
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