Taiga Araki Receives Seed Grant to Spearhead Mindscope Health

2017 Mar 10

Mindscope Health, an organization led by Siri McGuire '17 and Taiga Araki '17 has won the $10,000 Connecticut College Aetna Foundation seed stage grant-a branch of the InnovateHealth Yale and Aetna Foundation partnership.

Mindscope works to improve the quality of life for patients with brain diseases and mental illnesses. With a unique backstory of being founded by patients of brain diseases and mental illnesses, Mindscope Health wants "to transform the way that invisible diseases and symptoms are communicated and treated." By allowing patients to alternatively communicate their symptoms to their doctors through the use of an app, symptoms can be recorded overtime, as patients rate the severity of their symptoms throughout the day. That information is then compiled and displayed for doctors, creating a patient-led and patient-centered design process.

Stemming from the very real and personal health experiences McGuire and Araki have gone through-McGuire being diagnosed with a pituitary tumor after her freshman year in college and Araki, as an international student, developing a social anxiety disorder from a number of social struggles he encountered-both saw an opportunity to improve the quality patient of life, and jumped at it. The future of the organization takes them to Cleveland, Ohio, where just one of their many goals include establishing an official relationship with a health clinic in Cleveland.

Wesleyan congratulates Mindscope Health and its leaders for their innovative, passionate work. More information on Mindscope Health and the other seed grant winners can be found here.