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Mind-reading headphones sound like an invention straight out of a science-fiction film, and a far-fetched one at that.
But that’s exactly what Boston-based startup Neurable has spent the last nine years creating — and they’re going on sale this fall.
The headphones, called the MW75 Neuro, contain the same sensors as a bulky electroencephalogram — known as an EEG — which is used to measure electrical activity in the brain. Embedded with artificial intelligence (AI), the headphones translate this activity into usable information for the wearer, shared via an app.
Typically, EEGs are used to diagnose medical conditions like epilepsy, strokes or traumatic brain injuries. But Neurable’s goal is to create an “everyday brain-computer interface” that can help people struggling with burnout, fatigue and productivity, says Ramses Alcaide, the company’s CEO and co-founder.
These smart headphones are like “a Fitbit for your brain” that can track cognitive health and event detect the early signs of neurodegenerative diseases, he says — and could be the first in a new line of consumer-friendly brain-reading wearables.
Banishing burnout
Neurable was founded in 2015, spinning out from Alcaide’s work at the University of Michigan’s Direct Brain Interface Laboratory, where he completed his PhD.
According to Alcaide, it took 10 years of research and data from around 7,000 people to shrink the EEG technology into a headphone ear-cup while retaining accuracy.
Neurable’s sensors pick up on different brainwaves, and the AI interprets the patterns of the signals, which can indicate whether a person is focused or not — which Alcaide says could be a game-changer for productivity.
In the same way that fitness trackers set step counts and movement goals, gamifying exercise, Neurable’s app encourages users to increase their mental resilience by collecting “focus points” throughout the day. “If you’re in deep focus, you can knock it out in about 50 minutes — but if you’re distracted it’s harder to earn points,” he explains.
The concept, says Alcaide, is to help users “build discipline and good habits” through rewarding good cognitive hygiene.
By detecting mental fatigue as it happens, the headphones can prompt users to take a break, which results in hours more productivity — without “feeling burnt out at the end of the day,” he adds.
Neurable partnered with audiophile brand Master & Dynamic to create its brain-reading headgear, installing its proprietary technology in a pair of MW75 noise-canceling headphones. Retailing at $699 per pair, the headphones are currently available for pre-order and will go on sale later this fall. (Neurable declined to share sales-related figures.)
Invasive vs. non-invasive BCIs
BCIs, sometimes called brain-machine interfaces, have been around for decades, and are most commonly talked about in their invasive form: chips implanted in the brain.
While these brain chips can help people recover mobility after suffering from strokes, spinal cord injury, and other neurological diseases, they come with risks that are often not worth it for patients without chronic paraplegia, says Miguel Nicolelis, professor emeritus of neurobiology at Duke University, who is not involved with Neurable.
Nicolelis — one of the first neuroscientists to start researching brain-machine interfaces 25 years ago, who pioneered the first invasive BCI implants — says the focus has to be on the patients and their needs. That’s why he has spent much of the last decade working on non-invasive BCIs.
For most people, “electrodes on the surface of the scalp” provide enough data to understand brain health, says Nicolelis. “The resolution is a little lower, and you have to do more computational work to get the details, (but) it’s safe, affordable and scalable.”
Non-invasive BCIs could “reach a huge number of people in the future” — particularly when it comes to productivity and overcoming distractions — and assist in diagnosing and managing a range of brain disorders, says Nicolelis.
Data security
BCIs are still highly experimental, and in this growing field, there area lot of ethical questions, particularly around data usage and security.
According to Alcaide, ethical data management is at the “core” of the company: Neurable’s other co-founder is Adam Molnar, a serial tech entrepreneur with expertise in data policy through his roles at Harvard’s DCI Network and the Institute of Neuroethics. The company is already compliant with GDPR , the European Union’s data protection law, says Alcaide, and is working towards HIPAA compliance, the standard for sensitive health data protection.
“Our responsibility as a company is to make sure that we’re ethical about (data) and that we show that consistently,” says Alcaide.
Like many other BCI companies, Neurable also encrypts the data it gathers about users, and Alcaide stresses that all data is anonymized, too. The type of data gathered by Neurable, the same as an EEG, can’t be translated into an inner monologue, either.
Another concern is that BCIs could eventually give people who can afford cognitive accessories greater abilities than those who cannot.
Nicolelis is quick to shut down this idea. “Some crazy businesspeople … claim that they are going to upload content to our brains. This is a total fantasy. It is bad science fiction,” he says, adding: “You are not going to learn French by putting a probe in your head.”
Early disease detection
The MW75 Neuro is already in use at Healthspan Digital, a longevity clinic in Dubai, which introduced the tech earlier this year to assess cognitive health and help clients deal with stress and burnout. Deena Al Jassasi, director of human performance and brain health at the clinic, argues that the headphones are less intimidating for patients than other BCIs or EEGs, which require a skull cap and are time-consuming to set up.
Aside from boosting productivity, Neurable’s headphones can also flag cognitive irregularities, allowing people to seek early help for and diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, says Alcaide.
According to Alcaide, Neurable plans to license its tech — for which it has dozens of pending and approved patents across seven countries — to other companies, and it recently raised $13 million in funding to explore other wearable variations. As more people wear the headphones, Alcaide says users can opt-in to share their anonymized data which can help improve functionality for new software features.
One of these possible features is the ability to “control the device hands-free and voice-free,” says Alcaide, such as switching music tracks just by thinking about it to create a “seamless interaction between you and your technology.”
Ultimately, Alcaide hopes Neurable’s headphones can demystify the mind — and help users find focus in an over-stimulating and distracting world.
“Our vision is that, whether it’s headphones, earbuds, helmets — if it touches your head, you have the potential to be empowered with that data,” he says.
Additional reporting by Leroy Ah-Ben.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct Neurable’s compliance with data privacy regulations