Inside Neuroelectrics, the brain science start-up hoping to curb epilepsy and depression

The following is a transcript of the video.

High up in the hills of the Catalan capital, Neuroelectrics is developing therapies that it says will improve the lives of people living with brain disease. The group manufactures around 400 devices which it ships to 75 different countries worldwide each year. Everything from research to production and assembly takes place here. Ana Maiques is co-founder and CEO of Neuroelectrics.

ARJUN KHARPAL: Ana, thank you very much for having CNBC here today. Tell me about the products you make here.

ANA MAIQUES: Our main product is the cap that has up to 32 electrodes and what is innovative about our platform is that any of the electrodes or sensors that I put over my head have the potential to either monitor or stimulate your brain.

KHARPAL: What are the applications and treatments that the headgear can be used for?

MAIQUES: Our main indication today is epilepsy. In the world, there are 60 million patients suffering from epilepsy and one-third of those don’t respond to medication. So, these patients usually go into surgery, either a craniotomy — we remove the part of the brain that is creating the seizures — or an implanted device. So Neuroelectrics is bringing this noninvasive solution to try to reduce seizures.

Based on Neuroelectrics’ trials with the FDA, a patient with epilepsy would require ten daily 20-minute sessions for around eight weeks for its therapy to work. In the future, it’s hoped the headgear could also be used to treat depression and Alzheimer’s. So far, the group has conducted an open label study using 35 patients suffering from depression.

MAIQUES: Our business and commercialization strategy is to really make sure that our therapy is approved by the medical authorities and then prescribed by either a neurologist or a psychiatrist. We are looking for a reimburse model. So, we want the health-care systems to pay for this.

KHARPAL: It’s hard to talk about any of this kind of technology without talking about artificial intelligence as well.

MAIQUES: We’ve been using what it’s now called AI, or machine learning, or all these sophisticated tools for years. If you think of flight pilots, they don’t go into planes, they are in simulators, you know. So, why can you not have a simulator of the brain, where you can really have a digital copy of your brain. And then we can say, okay, for you that you suffer from depression, if we provide you this treatment, or this stimulation, how is your brain going to react? We are very excited about our NeuroTwin technology. I think it’s going to change the way we look at brain diseases.

For more on the NeuroTwin technology and the research process, I caught up with Roser Sanchez-Todo, R&D director of the brain modelling department.

ROSER SANCHEZ-TODO: So, in this floor, what we do is trying to understand the mechanisms behind the pathology so that we can model them, so we can predict how a patient will respond to this treatment. Our devices read the electrical activity of the brain, but also inject electricity. So, the areas that we’re focused on are those that are clearly electric. So, when you have epilepsy, you have an electrical discharge in one area of your brain. So, we can really target and help them with the electricity injected in.

KHARPAL: And in terms of the headgear itself, could you just sort of run me through how it works from putting it on to the end of the simulation?

SANCHEZ-TODO: There are some stages. First, we need to gather your data. We build this NeuroTwin. So, we try to build a replica of the geometry of the brain, but also the electrical activity that goes inside. And then we send that to the tablet of the patient, let’s say, or to the to the doctor, depends if you’re stimulated at home, or at the clinics, right? And then you just go. You put your headcap on, maybe you need some help in order to put the gel for the electrodes. And you just press the start stimulation. Usually, it’s from 20 minutes to an hour that you’re sitting and relaxing. Then you just need to take it out, clean it and then for the next day you repeat.

I couldn’t help but try the headgear myself. First, we measured the electrical activity recorded in these two frontal electrodes.

KHARPAL: So, you’re seeing these sort of occasional spikes on the screen. What is that in response to?

SANCHEZ-TODO: These are an artifact of your eye blinks.

KHARPAL: Shall we try it? Right. Blinking, blinking. There we go two big spikes there.

Then we injected electricity into my brain.

SANCHEZ-TODO: So, this will be the protocol that we will stimulate you in 50 seconds, and at the beginning you will feel some itchiness because we need to first try the impedance that everything is well connected. I press start. Okay, so now you will start feeling some intensity going on.

KHARPAL: So, electricity is passing through my brain. The data is being collected right now.

SANCHEZ-TODO: It’s going from one electrode to the other, actually. So, it’s passing through all your frontal areas of the brain.

KHARPAL: Yeah, I can definitely feel it now. Typically, if this was a, you know, proper patient, what would be the end result?

SANCHEZ-TODO: Right after this simulation, we just have a questionnaire for the patients. So, we will have measures before and after simulation.

KHARPAL: And do patients need to do anything specific when they’re wearing this?

SANCHEZ-TODO: So, let’s say in epilepsy, sometimes, what they do is they deprive the patient from sleep. So you could even record the seizure because they are more probable when you don’t sleep. But with healthy participants or if we want to see if there is more probability to suffer Parkinson’s, let’s say, maybe we do a specific task because we need the brain to be in a state in order to be able to predict.

So far, Neuroelectrics’ headgear has been used by NASA to study brain fatigue after long flights and Boston Children’s Hospital held trials that showed patients experienced a 44% reduction in seizures. The first commercial use of the device will hopefully be on patients with epilepsy, but that won’t happen until full FDA approval. Target date for that, September 2025.