The test process involves patients wearing the sensor cap, performing tasks on a screen, with AI analysis grading conditions and their severity across a range of disorders.

Descarte is framed as an objective brain-measurement method, analogous to a blood test or X-ray, grounded in extensive data and billions of model parameters.

Hemispheric, an Israeli startup, has built Descartes, an AI system that can diagnose a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions from a 15-minute brain-wave test using a sensor-cap cap and advanced AI analysis.

Hemispheric has conducted a PTSD pilot study with Israeli combat veterans and is pursuing regulatory milestones while planning facility expansion to scale testing and research.

Leadership emphasizes data as the fuel for AI, positions Descartes as a diagnostic-like test comparable to blood tests or imaging, and outlines regulatory pathways, partnerships with medical and pharma groups, and a model to monetize via cloud-based usage fees.

Descartes rests on a large database—roughly 100,000 subjects and 250,000 hours of brain-activity data—driving a six-billion-parameter NeuroAI foundation model for interpreting brain waves.

The system is described as noninvasive and capable of decoding brain activity to deliver objective measurements for conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, sleep disorders, and cognitive decline, with potential to define subtypes and guide treatment.

Company founders report accuracy improvements from about 70% to over 90% as they leverage large-scale brain data to decode the brain’s language, while addressing data-bias concerns and noting regional differences are minor compared to individual variation.

Beyond diagnostics, potential applications span education and learning enhancement, with the tool likened to a digital stethoscope for the brain.

The platform outputs objective measurements for a broad slate of conditions and uses its data to define subtypes and guide treatment decisions.

Hemispheric plans clinical-site expansion to Tel Aviv and Boston, aiming for tens of thousands of tests annually and pursuing FDA approvals for PTSD applications, with future European expansion in view.

The company has presented Descartes to the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health and expects to submit PTSD clinical-trial results to the agency as early as next year, following a pilot involving 122 Israeli combat veterans from Gaza.