Company Spotlight: Prophetic
Prophetic is pioneering a radical transformation of the human experience.
What if I told you that you could live in your fantasy beachside mansion, marry your high school sweetheart, and fly to your job as President very soon? The catch is that it’s only for 7-8 hours a night.
San Francisco’s own Prophetic is making it possible with BCI. Their aim is to use non-invasive ultrasound to activate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). This is the part of the brain that is responsible for higher-order cognitive functions like planning, decision making, and emotional regulation. This is the target.
The modality is ultrasound, specifically transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation (tFUS). This involves sending high-frequency sound wave waves on the order of a megahertz, or a million oscillations per second. This is much higher pitched than anything we or even our pets can hear, but it does cause small vibrations at the target. So unlike other BCI stimulation, tFUS doesn’t use electricity or magnetism. It uses physical, mechanical vibrations and small movements in the brain. tFUS is also one of the only neuromodulation techniques that can stimulate deep in the brain with high spatial precision, all without requiring an implant.
How do vibrations inhibit or stimulate neurons? The exact mechanism is unclear. It is possible that there are ion channels in the neurons that can open or close in response to mechanical force. It’s also possible that the movements can change the capacitance or voltage across a neuron’s membrane, which then causes ion channels to open or close. Or something else entirely.
Ultrasound is typically delivered in pulses that last about a millisecond, and with hundreds of these pulses per second. Higher frequencies stimulate the neurons and make them more likely to fire, while lower frequencies interestingly enough do the opposite, inhibiting that part of the brain.
You can also play with the frequency of the actual sound. Higher frequencies let you target parts of the brain more precisely, but they attenuate through the skull more, which makes it harder to penetrate the brain. Conversely, lower frequencies are less precise but maintain their strength as they reach deeper parts of the brain.
We will explore tFUS more in depth in a paper spotlight.
When I was putting together focused ultrasound and the prefrontal cortex, the first idea that came to mind was a tool to make you smarter or more mature. In theory, using tFUS to stimulate that part of the brain could make you better at planning, decision-making, and emotional regulation. Maybe you come up with more creative ideas or foolproof plans. This would be great to have on the job.
My second idea was the opposite. Maybe you leave work after a long day of serious thinking and you want to unwind. You go to a bar to have a drink or two to loosen up. But why spend the money and risk a DUI or a hangover? Instead, you could flip on your handy tFUS device at a lower pulse frequency, weakening the sober prefrontal cortex. Seriously, who’s building this???
The founders of Prophetic are certainly much more creative than I. They noticed that the DLPFC is dormant during dreaming, unless it’s lucid dreaming. I’m not sure how that was discovered, but it makes sense. You can probably guess where this is going—Prophetic is developing the Halo to stimulate your DLPFC while you dream to allow you to control your somnic destiny. You can place a refundable $100 deposit on the headband, which is estimated to cost $2,000. If it works, not a bad price to pay to live the life of your dreams for a third of the time (or subjectively more if your perception of time is distorted). Hopefully you don’t go crazy from waking up to your alarm after that every night.
