China’s brain-computer interface industry is growing fast, and the newest company to emerge from the country is aiming to access the brain without the use of invasive implants.
Gestala, newly founded in Chengdu with offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, plans to use ultrasound technology to stimulate—and eventually read from—the brain, according to CEO and cofounder Phoenix Peng.
It’s the second company to launch in recent weeks with the aim of tapping into the brain with ultrasound. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a major investment in brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs, cofounded by its CEO, Sam Altman, along with other tech executives 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 to visualize blood flow. One of the most common uses of ultrasound is to monitor the development of a fetus during pregnancy. But researchers have also been interested in ultrasound’s potential to treat diseases, not just diagnose them.
Depending on the intensity of the ultrasound, it can be used to destroy abnormal tissue such as blood clots or cancer, or modulate neural activity without the need for surgery. Focused ultrasound treatments are already approved for Parkinson’s disease, uterine fibroids, and certain tumors.
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, a brain region involved in the emotional component of pain, can reduce pain intensity in people for up to a week.
Peng says Gestala’s first-generation device will be a stationary benchtop machine. Patients would need to come into a clinic to receive the treatment. The company is in discussion with some hospitals in China that are interested in testing the technology, Peng says.
Gestala’s second-generation device will be a wearable helmet that will allow patients to use it at home under the guidance of a physician. 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 ultimately wants to use ultrasound to read the brain as well. Ideally, a device would detect brain states associated with chronic pain or depression, for instance, and deliver therapeutic stimulation to the precise area of the brain with abnormal activity. Peng says the goal is not “enhancement” of humans but healthier neural functions.
Most brain-computer interfaces, including Neuralink’s, work by picking up electrical signals generated by neurons. An ultrasound-based interface would instead measure changes in the brain’s blood flow.
Previously, Peng was the CEO and cofounder of Shanghai-based NeuroXess, which is developing a brain implant that reads electrical signals from neurons. NeuroXess is aiming to allow paralyzed individuals 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 from a part of the brain; for instance, the motor cortex,” Peng says. “Ultrasound, it seems like, can provide us with the capability to access the whole brain.”
Gestala’s other cofounder is Tianqiao Chen, founder of the online gaming company Shanda Interactive Entertainment. Chen also established 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 adage “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Maximilian Riesenhuber, a professor of neuroscience and codirector 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 particular part of it. The skull weakens and distorts ultrasound signals, and so far, researchers have been able to interpret neural activity with ultrasound only by removing a portion of the skull to create a “window” into the brain.
“The best people have been able to do so far is reading out neural activity in humans with cranial implants that are more translucent to ultrasound than bone. So, the readout part is a bit of an engineering challenge,” Riesenhuber says.
Another issue is that changes in blood flow are more sluggish than neural activity, which may not make it ideal for certain applications, such as translating speech.
Merge Labs has not said what 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 those applications are likely many years away. “I don’t expect people to be interfacing with ChatGPT based on functional ultrasound neuroimaging anytime soon,” Riesenhuber says.
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