Chinese brain-computer interface The industry is growing rapidly, and the latest company to enter the country aims to gain access to the brain without the employ of invasive implants.
Chengdu-based Gestala, which has offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, plans to employ ultrasound technology to stimulate the brain and eventually read from it, according to CEO and co-founder Phoenix Peng.
This is the second company to launch this technology in recent weeks, which aims to reach the brain using ultrasound. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a major investment in brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, co-founded by its CEO Sam Altman along with other CTOs and members of Forest Neurotech, a California-based nonprofit research organization.
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. However, researchers were also interested in the potential of ultrasound in treating diseases, not just diagnosing them.
Depending on the intensity of the ultrasound, it can be used to destroy abnormal tissue such as blood clots or tumors, or to modulate neural activity without the need for surgery. Focused ultrasound treatments are already approved for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, uterine fibroids and some cancers.
Initially, Gestala wants to build a device that delivers focused ultrasound to the brain to treat chronic pain. Pilot studies have shown that stimulating the anterior cingulate cortex – the area of the brain responsible for the emotional component of pain – can reduce pain intensity in people up to a week.
Peng says Gestala’s first-generation device will be a stationary machine. Patients will need to go to a clinic to receive treatment. Peng says the company is in talks with some hospitals in China that are interested in testing the technology.
Gestala’s second-generation device will be a wearable helmet that will allow patients to employ it at home under the supervision of a doctor. In addition to chronic pain, Gestala wants to gradually expand its therapy 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 eventually wants to employ ultrasound to read the brain as well. Ideally, the device would detect brain conditions associated with, for example, chronic pain or depression and deliver therapeutic stimulation to a specific area of the brain with abnormal activity. Peng says the goal is not to “improve” people, but to have healthier neural function.
Most brain-computer interfaces, including Neuralink, work by capturing electrical signals generated by neurons. Instead, an ultrasound-based interface would measure changes in blood flow in the brain.
Previously, Peng was CEO and co-founder of Shanghai-based NeuroXess, which is developing a brain implant that reads electrical signals from neurons. The goal of NeuroXess is to enable paralyzed people to control digital devices and produce synthetic speech through thought. Peng left NeuroXess last year to work on Getala.
“The electrical brain-computer interface only records data from parts of the brain, such as the motor cortex,” says Peng. “It looks like ultrasound could give us access to the entire brain.”
The second co-founder of Gestala is Tianqiao Chen, founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, an online gaming company. Chen also founded the California-based nonprofit Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute, which supports neuroscience research.
The company’s name comes from Gestalt psychology, a German school of thought associated with the saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Maximilian Riesenhuber, professor of neurology and co-director of the Center for Neuroengineering at Georgetown University, says extracting information from the brain using ultrasound is much more ambitious than delivering targeted ultrasound to a specific part of the brain. The skull attenuates and distorts ultrasound signals, and so far, researchers have only been able to interpret neuronal activity using ultrasound by removing part of the skull to create “window” to the brain.