Israeli Startup Hemispheric Unveils AI Model Decoding Human Brain Activity

Israeli startup Hemispheric, operating quietly for six years, has launched a groundbreaking AI model to decode human brain activity. The company, which has raised $52 million from leading investors, developed a non-invasive system using a lightweight sensor-equipped helmet that records brain waves and translates them into quantitative data and practical insights for doctors and researchers. The AI model, named "Descartes" after the French philosopher René Descartes, contains six billion parameters and requires only a 15-minute test where the patient wears the helmet connected to a tablet or smartphone app.

Founded by neuroscientist Dr. Haggai Lalazar and Gidi Litwin, co-founder of RealFace (acquired by Apple), Hemispheric addresses the lack of objective brain function tests, unlike other organs which have established diagnostic tools. Current diagnoses for conditions such as depression, PTSD, Parkinson's, and early cognitive decline rely mainly on questionnaires and behavioral assessments. The Decartes model was trained on over 250,000 hours of EEG data and behavioral and multimodal information from more than 100,000 individuals, enabling early detection of brain diseases, differentiation of disorder subtypes, and personalized treatment.

Hemispheric has built extensive data collection sites and specialized computing infrastructure, maintaining one of the world's largest private brain activity databases. Initial applications focus on personalized brain health, targeting post-trauma, mild traumatic brain injury, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Lalazar envisions a future where brain tests become routine like blood tests, providing objective data to improve medical decisions. Litwin highlighted the challenge of individual brain signal variability, overcome by large-scale data enabling accurate clinical brain function measurement without invasive procedures.

The company employs 112 experts in neuroscience, AI, software engineering, electronics, and clinical medical systems, many holding doctorates, and consults leading psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuroscientists. Hemispheric has presented its system to the FDA's Center for Medical Devices and Radiological Health and collaborates with government bodies and pharmaceutical companies, initially in the US and Europe.