BrainQ aims to develop a cure in the stroke and spinal cord injury space

BrainQ, the Israel-based neurotech startup, is aiming to take on brain-computer interface companies like Kernel and Neuralink. While Elon Musk’s Neuralink plans to plant computer chips in the human brain, Bryan Johnson’s startup, Kernel, is focused on developing technologies to understand and treat neurological diseases in new and exciting ways. Unlike them, BrainQ plans to use a non-surgically embedded EEG machine instead to gather data and improve outcomes for stroke and spinal cord patients.

This area is bringing up a tough challenge for BrainQ. EEG machines have been present since a while and are not new in the spinal cord injury space. Moreover, a Missouri-based company called NeuroLutions is already working on a similar EEG technology to improve and restore function to paralytics. Based on the same idea, NeuroPace focuses on seizures rather than stroke and spinal cord injuries.

BrainQ said that it needs to get through clinical human trials and gain Food and Drug Administration approval to sell its services in the U.S. So it will take a few years to become fully operational. It is conducting two human clinical trials for stroke patients in Israel and hopes to be available in the U.S. market by 2020. The company also aims to get into the research of Alzheimer’s and children’s syndromes. BrainQ has raised about $3.5 million from various Israeli investors and presented its clinical findings to the World Congress of Neuro Rehabilitation.