Vivek Garipalli@VivekGaripalli
Interview with Matt Angle, Founder & CEO of Paradromics
YouTube: bit.ly/4i5IHtg
Spotify: spoti.fi/41NgpwT
I’ve been fascinated by the BCI (Brain Computer Interface) space for some time. I’m a strong believer that seamlessly integrating the power of computation directly into the human brain can advance humanity at an infinite rate faster than the human brain or the power of computation when not seamlessly integrated together.
We are quite some time away from that vision becoming reality. Between now and then, there are many milestones that have to be achieved, and excitingly some of those key early milestones will be in solving some significant medical conditions.
I’ve had the great pleasure and privilege of being an investor in Paradromics and following along on the incredible journey that Matt Angle, Founder & CEO, has been leading. Matt is a very special founder, willing to tackle a space that is amazingly ambitious, and willing to attack problems that require many, many years of dedication before you can see the tangible results - and where Paradromics' time has now arrived.
The first medical condition that Matt and Paradromics are solving is enabling people who lost the ability to speak due to ALS or other conditions to speak again through a computer at conversational speeds. As someone who lost someone close to me due to ALS many years ago, it is very easy for me, and I think many others to be deeply inspired by this important first milestone. Paradromics hopes to have the first ALS patient speaking via brain to computer by year-end to create this first truly magical moment.
It’s important to make the BCI space more digestible to those who are looking to learn more, as the more interest that can be generated, the faster we can achieve more life-changing milestones along the path to seamless human/compute integration. While this will be considered unimaginable by many, I strongly believe age old unsolvable questions and problems can be solved when that happens, such as why do we exist, and how can we move information and objects from point to point instantaneously.
Hopefully you learn and enjoy it as much as I did recording it with Matt.
Table of Contents:
00:02:26 What is BCI?
00:03:23 Origin of Paradromics
00:04:04 BCI category overview: intracortical microelectrodes vs. surface electrodes 00:05:56 Paradromics vs. Neuralink
00:10:13 Matt Angle’s personal story and his path to neuroscience and BCI
00:17:22 Angle realizes how to maximize discovery in neuroscience
00:20:35 The human brain’s computation and pattern recognition abilities
00:26:49 BCI and the brain’s numerical computation
00:28:21 BCI history: the Utah Array, 1989
00:33:25 BCI design to minimize impact on brain anatomy
00:38:45 Paradromics and the drive to maximize data and minimize technological limitations
00:42:02 Paradromics first BCI use case: speech restoration
00:45:25 Current BCI communication rates (30 - 60 words per minute) and Paradromics’ projections (conservatively 80 - 100 words per minute)
00:46:43 Paradromics is born, initial funding and NIH / DARPA grants
00:52:46 Finding the sweet spot between the amount of data and power required for analog to digital conversion
00:55:30 Compressive Sensing: converting analog brain information into digital information
01:03:30 BCI companies: intracortical electrodes vs electrocorticography (surface electrodes aka ECoG)
01:04:39 An analogy to explain this difference: microphones inside vs. outside the stadium
01:06:54 Methodologies: pros and cons of ECoG devices
01:08:20 AI and ECoG devices: data limitations vs. model limitations
01:13:27 Ideal use case for ECoG devices: diagnostics (epilepsy, neuropsychiatric conditions)
01:15:58 Intracortical BCIs: three main companies building intracortical BCIs right now (Blackrock Neurotech, Neuralink, and Paradromics)
01:18:19 Key difference between Paradromics and Neuralink electrodes: platinum iridium vs. coated polyamide threads (impacts everything from how long the device lasts before erosion to scalability of production and pricing)
01:24:03 Difference in the life of electrodes by material (threads made from polymer films about 6 - 24 months, platinum iridium microelectrodes more than 10 years)
01:24:53 Why did Neuralink choose polymer? It lends itself to their vision of mass production
01:25:08 Difference between Paradromics and Neuralink: device durability (medical device vs. “the next cell phone”)
01:33:28 Clinical trials
01:39:26 FDA application and trial process
01:42:14 Differences between Paradromics and Neuralink: bits per second, device design
01:45:20 The longer road to restoring vision
01:49:15 The difference between brain to speech and brain to vision (recording vs. stimulation)
01:51:42 What is after brain-to-speech for Paradromics? Tackling mental illness
01:55:42 Beyond mental illness — higher cognitive interfaces. For example, spatial (or ninja) awareness. In the far future, the ability to tap in at a deeper level — we’re just scratching the surface.
01:59:11 Connecting BCI and robotics (prostheses and exoskeletons)
01:59:45 How far are we from dexterous control using functional electrical stimulation? Robotic control of prostheses will likely come first
02:04:29 Changing the notion of getting older: instead of knee surgery, why not two new prosthetic legs?
02:07:09 How do we close the gap between BCI and prosthetics / exoskeletons?
02:09:46 Brain stimulation, hearing restoration, touch restoration
02:12:28 The bigger picture: brain stimulation is ripe for discovery
02:17:11 BCI and the field of mnemonics (the mind palace analogy)
02:19:46 Building the Paradromics team — what drew people to Paradromics?
02:23:05 The evolution of Paradromics as a company
02:25:40 Paradromics partnership with NEOM: a BCI center of excellence
