Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions Ladan Jiracek

Dr Mounya Elhilali did the keynote talk at the NER Neural Engineering conference in Baltimore in 2023. I was able to sit down with her and talk to learn more about her auditory processing selectivity research.
Top 3 Takeaways:
 Nurses especially can get used to beeping and alarms which can be dangerous for patients. "Under anesthesia, you see some basic responses, but they are different than when you engage the, let's say, an animal in an awake state, and then when they are awake and actually behaving and engaging with the system" Audio recordings can be tuned to remove ambient noise but they need to be perfectly calibrated to distances between microphones. 0:45 "Do you want to describe your work a little bit?"
3:00 Can you talk about the Cocktail Party Problem?
4:30 How are alarms and beeping override our attention
8:30 How do you gather your data, what kinds of devices?
10:00 What is the role of awake vs non-awake states in auditory processing?
11:15 How did you get into this?
13:00 How are you involved in the translation of the science?
16:15 Why are recordings harder to hear than in real life?
17:15 Is there anything we didn't talk about?

Suraj Mudichintala is a Senior Associate at Action Potential Capital which is GSK's bioelectronic medicine venture fund.
Top 3 Takeaways:
"Our fund is different in that we invest actually directly off of GSK's balance sheet. So we're what's called an evergreen fund where we don't actually have a fund size" "The way that I think about it is that a VC is really paid to allocate capital but really is really paid to think. You really have to think about what is the next space or the next technology that could disrupt a space? And because of that, it's a much you often have to take a much more longitudinal view. And it takes a lot of patience and tracking a space oftentimes for years" "When you reach out to a VC having a pitch, first of all, sending a non-confidential pitch deck is mandatory, I think. And that deck is essentially where we're making the first decision as to whether or not to do a call with you" 0:45 Do you want to introduce yourself better than I just did?
1:15 "Do you wanna talk about Action Potential, what it is, who it was formed by, and the investment thesis?"
2:30 Do you want to talk about the expansion of the AP investment thesis?
4:30 What does traditional Venture Capital look like and how is it different in that you are funded by GSK?
6:15 What do the positions within a VC firm look like?
7:45 How has it been for you going from Analyst to Associate?
8:45 What does your due diligence look like?
11:45 "A lot of VCs have a target size range, be it seed or angel or, maybe larger institutional stuff. But it sounds like you guys don't really have that?"
12:45 "How did you get into this space?"
14:45 "So how does consulting compare to the VC life?"
18:45 "What would you suggest is the best way to get your attention?"
24:00 What are some tips and tricks to reaching out to you?
27:00 What was the worst pitch deck you ever saw?
28:30 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"
 

Balint Varkuti is the CEO of CereGate which unlocks new capabilities for existing neuromodulation technologies using software.
Top 3 Takeaways:
"the brain is naturally wired for pattern perception for learning, and that's really what we do. We send signals that the brain very quickly can pick up." "You do not need to exclusively be focused mentally, consciously on interpreting these signals. Rather it becomes second nature. Our favourite analogy is saying it is like braille for the brain." "With hardware, you sometimes have simply the disadvantage that you are married to the time point when you started. So if you started a long time ago, you started with that technology and you have a whole regulatory documentation that's building on that. So fundamentally pivoting in hardware down the road almost becomes impossible."
0:45 Do you want to introduce yourself?
3:00 What is special about the software that hasn't already been done?
11:30 The brain is plastic and the software is changing so how does it work with these two systems fighting?
13:30 How can this approach be used to treat Parkinson symptoms such as Freezing of Gait ?"
14:15 Can you read braille?
15:30 "How fast does a patient learn to use this?"
19:00 " How can a company work with you?"
21:15 You guys have been in stealth mode for 4 years, why did it take 4 years and do you have any success stories so far?
23:45 "Do you wanna talk about the regulatory pathway and how it was how to do a software versus a hardware solution?"
27:00 How did your background in behavioral sciences shape your outlook to the company?
30:15 You didn't mention coding in your background, can you talk about starting a software company without much coding experience?
31:30 You have 25 people involved in the company but doesn't seem that you have raised much money, why such a big team?
35:15 "What does the next four years look like? What's on your horizon?"
37:00 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Kevin Tracey returns to the podcast to give an update about his work at the Feinstein Institutes and the work at SetPoint Medical.
Top 3 Takeaways:
"Two years we discovered that a drug called Famotidine, which is sold as a generic drug Pepcid AC is actually a pharmacological or a drug-based vagus nerve stimulator. And we proved first in mice that famotidine placed directly in very small amounts placed directly in the brains of mice activates the vagus nerve. And this in turn turned off cytokine storm, which of course is a big problem in Covid 19" "A company that I've co-founded, Setpoint Medical, is currently deep into clinical trials in the United States called ResetRA, which is on clinical trials.gov or on the SetPoint website for rheumatoid arthritis patients. And that trial is enrolling many patients up to, I think 250 patients will be studied according to the websites and we're hoping that goes very well. And we're hoping, I'm hoping that leads to FDA approval for vagus nerve stimulation in the US in the coming days or coming in the coming months" "I think we're very close now to vagus nerve stimulation becoming a reality for millions of patients. And I, I hope, and I see a time when patients have the. Of  choosing vagus nerve stimulation as a simple, safe therapy instead of dangerous, expensive drugs with black box warnings that are minimally effective." 0;30 "Do you wanna introduce yourself and talk about some of your work, especially as neuromodulation pertains to the immune system?"
2:45 "So the last time when we talked it was 2020. So pandemic, everything was upside down. But then you were telling me before we started recording that it was also especially busy for you at that time. So what were you up to around then?"
6:00 What were the quantitative takeaways of the Famotidine Covid trials?
8:15 "Why didn't it become standard practice?"
11:00 "You're saying the famotidine has this effect on the vagus nerve. Does this mean we no longer need vagus nerve stimulators? Can we just take Pepcid, AC?"
15:00 Do you want to talk about the Bioelectronic Medicine Summit?
17:30 What were some of the highlights of the Summit?
 19:30 "You mentioned some interesting results. Is that something you can share now or is that something that we should be on the lookout for?"
21:30 "You were also featured recently in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, what was that like and what were the articles about?"
23:15 "So what's exciting you now for 2023 and what's on the horizon for you for the next few years?"
27:15 "Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"

Israel Gasperin is the founder and CEO of Zentrela which uses wearable EEG caps to quantitatively measure cannabis experiences.
Top 3 Takeaways:
"The reason why the government funded us was to use this for safety and law enforcement" "The combination of features that AI is finding is something that we haven't really focused on studying and trying to understand. It's a black box today that, is accurately and objectively characterizing the  psychoactive effects, but we don't exactly know what they mean." "Based on this neuroscience-driven research proving the onset time of the beverage, within two weeks [the company] increased their sales by 7% and they achieved record volume cells after. So what we did, or they did, was to educate the retailers to speak about their product based on this scientific publication, rather than, providing their subjective opinion"
0:45 Do you want to describe yourself better than I just did?
1:00 "We're talking about marijuana, we're talking about getting high. What are you measuring or what's the reasoning behind this?"
11:00 " You're saying that you can tell if people are high or not. What kind of confidence do you have and, what shows up in high people's brains?"
14:15 Do you want to talk about one of your success stories working with a company?
 22:45 "How many people have you had come through your labs and run through your system?"
24:00 "Of the 20,000 sessions, how many are yours?"
27:45 "You've been working on this for six years. What do the next six years look like?"
32:15 "What are some challenges?"
35:45 "Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to mention?"
https://www.linkedin.com/in/israelgasperin/?locale=en_US 

Colin Kealey is the President and CEO of NeuroSigma which is commercializing the Monarch eTNS System, the first non-drug treatment for pediatric ADHD cleared by the FDA. 
Top 3 Takeaways:
NeuroSigma is commercializing the Monarch eTNS system, a wearable medical device that stimulates the trigeminal nerve on the forehead, as a treatment for neurologic and neuropsychiatric indications. The Monarch eTNS System is FDA cleared as a treatment for pediatric ADHD, ages 7 – 12. Clinical trials in this population show a response rate of 50% with a only mild side effects observed in clinical trials to date. NeuroSigma is also developing its eTNS technology for other indications including epilepsy and depression and is currently running two large double-blind randomized controlled trials in ADHD to expand the label into adolescents, and for using the device as adjunctive therapy.   0:45 "Do you want to introduce yourself better than I just did?"
 7:15 What is the efficacy of your device?
8:45 "What are some typical side effects of pharmaceutical ADHD treatments and what are some typical side effects of your guys' treatment?"
16:45 That was the pharmaceutical side effects, how about the neurostimulator side effects?
20:00 How does it work sleeping with a wired system?
21:45 "Were you guys able to cross-reference with any other sleep metrics to see if the quality of sleep diminished or maybe even increased?"
24:30 What's the protocol for using this device?
26:30 Could adults use this also?
28:30 Will college students use this as a study aid?
29:30 "What does your funding look like?"
35:15 How will you prevent Chinese knockoffs?
38:30 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"