An Israeli start up claims to have developed technology which can “decode the brain” and help treat neurological and psychological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, depression, schizophrenia and PTSD.
Hemispheric, which has received nearly £40 million in funding, was founded by entrepreneurs Gidi Littwin and Hagai Lalazar.
Littwin was a co-founder of facial recognition startup RealFace, which was bought by Apple in 2017 and a co-inventor of Apple's Face ID technology.
Lalazar has 25 years experience in scientific research and innovative startups in Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley.
The core of the company's technology is an AI model called Descartes which has taken six years to develop and has been trained to interpret brain activity data.
According to the firm, Descartes was supplied with 250,000 hours of data, including electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings and behavioural information collected from more than 100,000 participants through Hemispheric's global research network.
The platform is designed to provide clinicians with “objective measurements” of brain function.
Lalazar said: "Every major organ in the body has objective tests, except the brain.
"Each person's brain is unique, like a snowflake, which is why current attempts at one-size-fits-all treatments fall short."
Unlike invasive brain-computer interface technologies, Hemispheric's system uses a wearable dry-electrode EEG headset.
During a 15-minute session, patients wear the headset while completing tasks on a tablet or smartphone.
The platform analyses electrical brain activity and generates quantitative results intended to help physicians diagnose disorders, select treatments and monitor patient progress over time.
Littwin, the firms chief technical officer, said: "Non-invasive neurotechnology is the only path to democratising brain health.
"The challenge has always been variability: the same brain signal can look completely different across individuals."
A team of 112 researchers and engineers specialising in computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence and medical imaging spent more than six years developing Descartes.
The team included developers who previously worked on technologies underlying Apple's Face ID facial recognition system and the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset.
On his LinkedIn profile Littwin says: “We're living in a unique moment in time where the breakthroughs at the intersection of neuroscience and deep learning are offering new opportunities for revolutionising mental health, decoding and enhancing cognition, and interfacing with the human brain.”
The company said it has shown the technology to leadership at the US Food and Drug Administration's Centre for Devices and Radiological Health and is seeking regulatory approvals in the United States and Europe.
It is also working with government agencies and pharmaceutical companies to develop clinical applications.
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