Israeli Startup Uses AI to Diagnose Brain Disorders in 15 Minutes

Israeli startup Hemispheric has developed an artificial intelligence system designed to diagnose a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions through a 15-minute brain-wave test. The company describes its technology, called Descartes, as the first to provide a precise, objective method for measuring and decoding human brain activity.

The system can identify conditions including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia risk, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury, obsessive-compulsive disorder, tinnitus, ADHD, sleep disorders and early cognitive decline, while assessing their severity.

Patients wear a sensor-equipped cap connected to an app and perform tasks on a screen. The resulting data is analyzed by the company's AI model. The founders compare the approach to a blood test or X-ray, offering doctors an objective diagnostic tool in a field historically dependent on interviews and questionnaires.

The system was built using data from 100,000 test subjects and approximately a quarter-million hours of brain-activity recordings, and contains 6 billion parameters.

Co-founder and CEO Dr. Hagai Lalazar, a computational neuroscientist, and CTO Gidi Littwin, a computer vision expert who helped develop Apple's Face ID and led hand-tracking work for Vision Pro, established the company. Hemispheric employs more than 110 people across three countries and has raised $52 million in venture funding.

The company operates data-collection sites in Tel Aviv and the Philippines, with plans to open new research facilities in Tel Aviv and Boston by the end of September. The sites are projected to process approximately 85,000 diagnostic tests annually.

Hemispheric has presented its system to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health and plans to submit results from a PTSD clinical trial to the agency as early as next year. The company conducted a pilot study involving 122 Israeli combat veterans who served in Gaza to evaluate PTSD.