China’s brain-computer interface the industry is rapid growthand the newest company to emerge from the country aims to access the brain without resorting to invasive techniques. implants.
Gestala, newly founded in Chengdu with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, plans to use ultrasound technology to stimulate – and possibly read – the brain, according to CEO and co-founder Phoenix Peng.
This is the second company launched in recent weeks with the aim of exploiting the brain using ultrasound. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced major investment in brain-computer interface startup Merge laboratoriesco-founded by its CEO, Sam Altman, with other technology executives and members of Forest Neurotech, a nonprofit research organization based in California.
Best known as a type of medical test, ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to create images of internal organs and visualize blood flow. One of the most common uses of ultrasound is to monitor fetal development during pregnancy. But researchers have also been interested in the potential of ultrasound to treat diseases, and not just to diagnose them.
Depending on the intensity of the ultrasound, it can be used to destroy abnormal tissue such as blood clots or cancer, or to modulate neuronal activity without the need for surgery. Focused ultrasound treatments are already approved for Parkinson’s disease, uterine fibroids and certain tumors.
First, Gestala wants to build a device that delivers focused ultrasound to the brain to treat chronic pain. Pilot studies have shown that stimulation of the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region involved in the emotional component of pain, can reduce pain intensity in people with pain. up to a week.
Peng says Gestala’s first-generation device will be a stationary tabletop machine. Patients should come to a clinic to receive treatment. The company is in discussions with some Chinese hospitals interested in testing the technology, Peng said.
Gestala’s second-generation device will be a wearable headset that allows patients to use it at home under the guidance of a doctor. Beyond chronic pain, Gestala wants to gradually expand to other indications, including depression and other mental illnesses, as well as stroke rehabilitation, Alzheimer’s disease and sleep disorders.
Like Altman’s Merge Labs, Gestala also wants to use ultrasound to read the brain. Ideally, a device would detect brain states associated with chronic pain or depression, for example, and deliver therapeutic stimulation to the precise area of the brain exhibiting abnormal activity. Peng says the goal is not “improvement” of humans but healthier neuronal functions.
Most brain-computer interfaces, including Neuralink’s, work by sensing electrical signals generated by neurons. An ultrasound-based interface would instead measure changes in brain blood flow.
Previously, Peng was CEO and co-founder of Shanghai-based NeuroXess, which is developing a brain implant that can read electrical signals from neurons. NeuroXess aims to enable paralyzed people to control digital devices and produce synthesized speech with their thoughts. Peng left NeuroXess last year to work on Gestala.
“The electrical brain-computer interface only records part of the brain, for example the motor cortex,” says Peng. “It appears that ultrasound can give us access to the entire brain.”
Gestala’s other co-founder is Tianqiao Chen, founder of online gaming company Shanda Interactive Entertainment. Chen also established the nonprofit Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute, based in California, which supports neuroscience research.
The company’s name comes from Gestalt psychology, a German school of thought associated with the adage “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Maximilian Riesenhuber, professor of neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Neuroengineering at Georgetown University, says that extracting information from the brain using ultrasound is much more ambitious than delivering ultrasound targeted to a particular part of it. The skull weakens and distorts ultrasound signals and until now, researchers have been able to interpret neuronal activity through ultrasound only by removing part of the skull to create a “window” on the brain.
“The best people have been able to do so far is read neuronal activity in humans with cranial implants that are more translucent to ultrasound than bone. So the reading part is a bit of an engineering challenge,” says Riesenhuber.
Another problem is that changes in blood flow are slower than neuronal activity, which may not make it ideal for certain applications, like speech translation.
Merge Labs hasn’t specified which applications it will focus on, but its website mentions the potential to “restore lost abilities, support healthier brain states, deepen our connection with each other, and expand what we can imagine and create alongside advanced AI.”
Some of these applications will probably be expected several years from now. “I don’t expect people to interface with ChatGPT based on functional ultrasound neuroimaging anytime soon,” says Riesenhuber.