Gestalla, newly founded in Chengdu with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, plans to use ultrasound technology to stimulate the brain and eventually read, according to CEO and co-founder Phoenix Peng.
It is the second company to launch in recent weeks with the aim of accessing the brain through ultrasound. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a major investment in brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, which CEO Sam Altman co-founded with other tech executives and members of the California-based nonprofit research organization Forest Neurotech.
A type of medical test known as ultrasound, it uses high-frequency sound waves to create images of internal organs and visualize blood flow. The most common use of ultrasound is to monitor fetal development during pregnancy. But researchers are also interested in ultrasound’s ability to treat diseases, not just diagnose them.
Depending on the intensity of the ultrasound, it can be used to destroy abnormal tissues such as blood clots or cancer, or to control nerve activity without the need for surgery. Focused ultrasound treatments are already approved for Parkinson’s disease, uterine fibroids and some tumors.
Initially, Gestala wants to create a device that delivers focused ultrasound to the brain to treat chronic pain. Pilot studies have shown that stimulating the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area involved in the emotional component of pain, can reduce pain intensity in people for as little as one week.
Peng says Gestala’s first generation device will be a stationary benchtop machine. Patients must come to the clinic to receive treatment. Peng says the company is already in discussions 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 use it at home under physician guidance. 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 eventually use ultrasound to read the brain. For example, ideally, a device would detect brain conditions associated with chronic pain or depression, and deliver therapeutic stimulation to the precise area of the brain with abnormal activity. Peng says the goal is not “enhancement” of humans but healthy nerve function.
Most brain-computer interfaces, including Neuralink, work by capturing electrical signals generated by neurons. Instead an ultrasound-based interface will measure changes in brain blood flow.
Previously, Peng was CEO and co-founder of Shanghai-based NeuroAccess, which is developing a brain implant that reads electrical signals from neurons. NeuroAccess aims to allow paralyzed individuals to control digital devices and generate synthesized speech with their thoughts. Peng left NeuroAccess last year to work on Gestalla.
“The electrical brain-computer interface only records from one part of the brain, for example, the motor cortex,” says Peng. “It looks like ultrasound might give us the ability to reach the entire brain.”
Gestalla’s other co-founder is Tianqiao Chen, founder of online gaming company Shanda Interactive Entertainment. Chen also founded the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute, a California-based nonprofit that supports neuroscience research.
The company’s name comes from Gestalt psychology, a German philosophy associated with the adage, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Maximilian Reisenhuber, professor of neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Neuroengineering at Georgetown University, says extracting information from the brain with ultrasound is much more ambitious than delivering targeted ultrasound to a specific part of it. The skull attenuates and distorts ultrasound signals, and until now, researchers have only been able to interpret neural activity with ultrasound by removing a portion of the skull to create a “window” into the brain.
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