Synapstory — Eye-Tracking Patent

About This Project

Wendy Anson, PhD holds a United States Patent for Synapstory — a groundbreaking eye-tracking method for detecting PTSD and trauma markers in children. Awarded by the US Patent and Trademark Office, this invention represents a unique, non-invasive diagnostic tool that can identify trauma before it manifests as behavioral or clinical symptoms.

Developed through Wendy's doctoral research in Educational Psychology and Technology at USC, combined with her USC Annenberg Fellow work in Scholarly Multimedia, Synapstory bridges behavioral science, eye-tracking technology, and early childhood trauma research. The system tracks and scores user icon manipulation and placement in real time — weighted according to a scale indicative of trauma or disturbance intensity — without requiring children to verbalize their experiences.

Current theoretical and clinical findings show that adults and children who have undergone highly disturbing experiences are often unable to talk about them — sometimes not even able to remember them. Standard questionnaires and expressive language methods have proven inadequate. Synapstory bypasses conscious defenses to access non-verbal, unconscious memory of traumatic events, enabling clinicians to "tell about" or communicate "what happened when."

Wendy's CHSE certification and extensive work with healthcare simulation — including writing assessment tools for the NIH and publishing peer-reviewed research on simulation-based assessment — grounds this invention in rigorous clinical standards.

The patent is granted. Wendy is actively seeking research collaborators, institutional partners, pediatric healthcare organizations, and investors to advance Synapstory toward clinical trials and deployment in schools and clinical settings worldwide.

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