Neurable + The Promise Of Brain-Computer Interfaces

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Dr. Ramses Alcaide

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Our story begins with my family. Many years ago, a devastating trucking accident left my uncle without the use of his legs. He was an engineer by trade, and would use his skills to create his own custom prosthetics; in doing so, he taught himself new ways to move through the world. Witnessing my uncle’s journey was the spark for what would ultimately shape the rest of my life.

I became fascinated with how engineering could be leveraged to improve human mobility, and therefore, human autonomy. And through this process, I realized that in order to address these core issues, I needed to go straight to the source: the brain. As a PhD student studying neuroscience, I witnessed the disparity between prosthetics and brain-reading tech’s capabilities while working with people who were differently-abled. During this period, I came to understand the potential power that BCIs (brain computer interfaces) had to fundamentally improve human life.

To me, this is the promise of brain-computer interfaces: to not only improve our lives, but to create a world without limitations.

That’s why today, we are announcing the official preorder of Enten, Neurable’s first pair of BCI-enabled headphones. Research tells us that people only have 2-3 hours of high productivity in their day. Enten lets you know how and when that happens so you can maximize your time without overextending your brain. They tell you when it’s time to take a break and track what activities impact your focus. They’re intelligent, leveraging passive controls to minimize distractions, and active controls to auto-mute notifications when you’re in the zone. Enten, in short, removes barriers in your day to day, giving you greater control over your time and how you live your life.

These headphones are infused with over a decade of neuroscience research stretching back to my time at the University of Michigan. But Enten is more than just a technological innovation: they are the first BCI-enabled product built from the ground up to be practical day in and day out. Enten’s BCI sensors are made of cloth, meaning that unlike EEG devices you might encounter in a lab, you can easily slide them on and off without any hassle. They have the same design, comfort, and baseline functionality as leading headphones on the market today, while giving you valuable insight into how your brain works.

The unveiling of Enten is an important step on our journey to commercialize neurotechnology and make this technology a part of everyday life. For years now, our industry has boasted about products that, in the end, are just not relevant to how people live. With Enten, we are rolling out this technology for the world to experience and enjoy for the first time. But Enten is just the beginning.

For too long, the tech industry has pursued innovation for innovation’s sake. We haven’t done a good job of creating products that actually help people. Instead, we’ve focused our energy on exciting ideas that have no bearing on the lived experiences of people across the world. We need to rethink our approach to creating technology, starting with the purpose of the products we create. Enten, in many ways, is a direct response to the tech industry’s inability to connect technology to daily life. And today’s launch affirms that a human-centric approach to innovation is possible, and necessary.

Enten’s launch is an important first step in changing how we connect to the devices in our lives. Technology’s purpose is ultimately to solve society's biggest challenges. In the years to come, neuroscience will allow us to interact with the devices in our lives in new ways, freeing us from constraints and enabling technology to solve important problems for individuals and society at large. The development of BCI technology over the coming years will mirror technology’s broader progression towards creating a world without limitations.

Enten’s launch starts us on that journey. Join us here.

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‍²Distraction Stroop Tasks experiment: The Stroop Effect (also known as cognitive interference) is a psychological phenomenon describing the difficulty people have naming a color when it's used to spell the name of a different color. During each trial of this experiment, we flashed the words “Red” or “Yellow” on a screen. Participants were asked to respond to the color of the words and ignore their meaning by pressing four keys on the keyboard –– “D”, “F”, “J”, and “K,” -- which were mapped to “Red,” “Green,” “Blue,” and “Yellow” colors, respectively. Trials in the Stroop task were categorized into congruent, when the text content matched the text color (e.g. Red), and incongruent, when the text content did not match the text color (e.g., Red). The incongruent case was counter-intuitive and more difficult. We expected to see lower accuracy, higher response times, and a drop in Alpha band power in incongruent trials. To mimic the chaotic distraction environment of in-person office life, we added an additional layer of complexity by floating the words on different visual backgrounds (a calm river, a roller coaster, a calm beach, and a busy marketplace). Both the behavioral and neural data we collected showed consistently different results in incongruent tasks, such as longer reaction times and lower Alpha waves, particularly when the words appeared on top of the marketplace background, the most distracting scene.

‍Interruption by Notification: It’s widely known that push notifications decrease focus level. In our three Interruption by Notification experiments, participants performed the Stroop Tasks, above, with and without push notifications, which consisted of a sound played at random time followed by a prompt to complete an activity. Our behavioral analysis and focus metrics showed that, on average, participants presented slower reaction times and were less accurate during blocks of time with distractions compared to those without them.

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