A woman wearing a brainwave scanning headset sits on a chair in the modern brain study laboratory/ … [+]
Massachusetts startup Elemind has raised $12 million to read brain waves and treat sleep disorders, long-term pain, tremors and to accelerate learning rates. Clinical trials show the company’s wearable device can induce sleep up to 70% faster, reduce tremors in patients with physiological tremors by up to 50%, and increase learning rates.
“We use a wearable neurotechnology device to read the brain in real time and intercept it in real time with something called neurostimulation,” Meredith Perry, co-founder and CEO of Elemind, told me. Recent TechFirst podcast. “It involves using sound, light, vibration or electricity to stimulate the brain. And when we do that, we can actually guide the brain precisely, resulting in a change in behavior. It’s like medicine, but much smarter and without side effects.
MIT Investment Fund participated in the fundraising and co-founder Dr. David Wang holds a PhD in AI from MIT.
Elemind hasn’t yet released details about its neurotech wearable, but it’s a soft headband that’s comfortable enough to wear to bed.
The hardware engages in what Wang calls “constructive and deconstructive interference on your brainwaves,” but it doesn’t need to directly stimulate brainwaves to do so. Rather, it presents certain stimuli to which your brain responds, thereby producing the desired result.
The company calls this Noise Canceling for the Brain.
“The brain is an electrochemical organ and we can measure brain wave activity outside the brain using what’s called an EEG,” Perry explains. “A brain wave is a biological oscillation and different brain states are characterized by different brain wave frequencies…if you are alert it will be a single frequency. If you are tired and sleepy, this will be another frequency. If you are focused, it will be another frequency. And what we’ve learned is that by stimulating at certain times relative to brain waves, we can speed up certain frequencies, we can slow them down, we can amplify them or suppress them. That’s what neuromodulation is, and we’ve found that by changing the brain waves themselves, we can actually change the state that a person is in.
The goal is non-invasive external treatment without the need for pills or medications, which often have side effects and do not necessarily only target the negative condition.
Elemind cites five clinical trials and publications that support the effectiveness of their technology. This includes preliminary (and therefore not peer-reviewed) research such as this study on sleep and insomnia as well as reviewed research such as this study on physiological tremors or another on learning. The company has been in stealth mode since 2019, so it has been working on the solution for several years.
Wang says AI is an important part of Elemind’s solution, which will help detect and diagnose problems in real time for long-term users, as well as learn how to achieve optimal brainwave states more quickly over time.
“Every brain is unique and constantly evolving, so we leverage AI and machine learning to optimize stimulation parameters to guide the brain to the desired state as quickly as possible,” he said in a statement. “You can think of it as noise cancellation for the mind: our technology uses phase-locked auditory stimuli to precisely align with the user’s brainwaves and direct them to a different frequency associated with a different state .”
Over time, the company plans to create a “brain app store” so users can download different solutions for different conditions, symptoms or desired states.
“The vision here is to be able to develop individualized treatments for different people for their different conditions, to enable them to be the most optimized versions of themselves at all times,” says Perry.
Besides MIT, early investors include Village Global, which is backed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reid Hoffman, as well as 23andMe’s Bill Gates and Ann Wojcicki, as well as LDV Partners and Wharton’s Alumni Angel fund.