Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine
“Your Life Style Is Your Medicine” is a podcast that focuses on how a person's lifestyle can be the key to health and happiness. Routed in the principles of lifestyle medicine, Ed Paget, osteopath, and exercise scientist, interviews area-specific experts on how lifestyle impacts well-being, focusing on purpose, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and stress, which could lead to a longer, happier life. Edward now runs immersive lifestyle medicine retreats, with the purpose of helping others take back control of their lives to live longer and healthier.
Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine
Podcast Episode 61: Transcranial Brain Stimulation for Optimal Performance
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What if cognitive decline isn’t a fate but a feedback problem? We sit down with Sensei founder Paola Tefler to unpack a home neurotechnology platform that reads how your brain processes new information to the millisecond, then uses safe, noninvasive tools to help you focus better, sleep deeper, and recover faster. This isn’t another vague wellness gadget. It’s a closed loop: assess, intervene, reassess—and watch the data move.
Paola shares how a car crash and concussion revealed a gap in brain care and sparked eight years of R&D. We get into the nuts and bolts of event‑related potentials from a standardized flanker task, why function beats raw EEG power for everyday performance, and how thousands of sessions across ages fueled a biological brain age clock that approaches MRI models without the cost or friction. Because the signals are upstream of structural change, they’re actionable: you can check your brain age quarterly and see whether training is making you measurably younger, faster, and more efficient.
We break down the interventions too. Transcranial photobiomodulation at 810 nm personalizes stimulation around your alpha center frequency—no more one‑size‑fits‑all 10 Hz—while layered binaural beats and targeted meditations steer you toward calm or “ready” states. Neurofeedback translates alpha power and synchrony into responsive sound within ~200 ms, teaching you to enter and stabilize useful states without overthinking. Over time, protocols progress from foundational alpha and beta work to mixed pairings like alpha‑theta and theta‑gamma, building flexibility and resilience rather than a single productivity gear. Paola also walks through third‑party validation with the Buck Institute, the forthcoming Brain Years clinician report, and why motivated consumers and longevity clinics alike are leaning into objective, repeatable brain metrics.
If you care about longevity, cognition, attention, sleep, or burnout prevention, this deep dive into EEG, HRV, photobiomodulation, and neurofeedback will shift how you think about brain healthspan—and what you can do about it at home. If you enjoyed the conversation, subscribe, share with a friend who values their mind, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.
Framing Brain Healthspan
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Your Life Stellogy and Medicine podcast, where we do deep dives into topics of mind, body, and spirit. So these conversations are here: practical advice and effective strategies to improve your health and ultimately add health span to your lifespan. I'm Ed Padget, I'm an osteopath and exercise physiologist with a special interest in longevity. Now we talk a lot about how exercise can stave off the effects of aging on the body. But have you ever wondered how you could train your brain to keep working fast and more even more efficiently? Well, today's guest has made a device that can do just that. Paula Tefler is the founder of Sensei, a neurotechnology platform focused on brain aging, brain training, neurofeedback, and neuromodulation, and they can do it all from the comfort of your own home. Today we're going to talk about how Sensei began after a car crash that changed the direction of Paola's life. She shares what it took to spend eight years in research and development building a hardware and software system that delivers clinically grounded brain training in a way that's accessible, measurable, and scalable. We dig into their work on the biological brain aging clocks and why this data matters for brain health and recovery and what sets Sensei apart from other neuromodulation devices. The conversation covers her personal story, the science behind Sensei, and where neurotechnology is heading next. So Paula, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Ed. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00So if someone's just listened to an introduction and they're like, okay, I'm I'm ready to spend 45 minutes to an hour listening to you guys talk, what are we going to be talking about?
SPEAKER_01We're going to be talking about brain health and in particular brain health span because we are uh looking at living longer and we're doing a great job of that from a body perspective, but nobody wants to age uh well with their body and then lose their minds, right? That is where our freedom lies, our identity lies. So we want to talk about how how do we do that? How do we measure that? How do we make that objective?
Introducing Sensei’s Headset And Tests
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, let's give people a little teaser because I'm with you. Like we're we're getting great at this longevity piece when it comes to the physical body, but I think most people's fears are things like Alzheimer's and dementia. You know, what's the point of being in great physical shape if your mind doesn't work? So, what does your company come up with recently?
SPEAKER_01Well, so we we have we're a neurotechnology platform. So as much as you know, it looks like uh it's hardware. If if you're looking on video, you can see that it's it's a headset that it's got electronics inside that are both reading and stimulating the brain. Uh as well, it's got this um this controller that you use to do a brain function test. Now, the word function is really important there because you have these two buttons. You're actually doing a 15-minute task that is a standardized task that they would use in clinical research. And while you're doing that task, we are reading your brain waves to one millisecond precision. So one millisecond precision. It's really um quite a feat of engineering to do that on a headset that's portable and self-serve. And because we're doing that, we're able to see how you process new information, right? So that's already really interesting because it's a lot more um valuable to understand how you function and process new information than it is to just look at your, let's say, EEG, the brain waves, the power and that sort of thing. It doesn't necessarily tell you whether or not you are functioning better in life. So the best proxy we could use was to do this brain function test. So it's embedded. But now what we're doing with all of that data set that we've collected over the last two and a half years over thousands of people internationally, ages from like teenagers all the way into late 80s, uh, men and women. So it's quite a diverse, robust data set. We've been able to analyze that data and form a biological brainage clock. So now that means that we can start looking at how the brain is aging and what are those biomarkers that are different between a younger brain and an older brain.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so this is the first time that I've actually heard the word biological brain age clock. We had uh a lady called um Dr. Morgan Levine on the podcast uh a couple of years ago, and she invented um another biological clock to work on, I think it was the the liver or some internal organs, and you can sort of piece together that your body's aging, you're like your chronological age, like how many years old you are versus your biological age. And and you're saying that you can do that for the brain.
Building A Biological Brain Age Clock
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's right. And part of the key of that was collecting a diverse data set. So as much as this is uh a brain uh, you know, brain headset, uh, we also are collecting heart rate variability, right? So it's looking at the nervous system. We're looking at EEG, um, which is the contextual uh, but in in context. So we're not just looking at EEG uh uh for people that are doing random things. They're actually we're looking at their EEG while they're uh doing focus training, uh neurofeedback training, uh neurostimulation. We have a lot of context, which is really helpful also for that modeling. And uh and again, we are measuring event-related potentials, which is the standardized brain function test. We didn't invent it. It's something that's that's actually you know very, very, uh, very standardized. And the one that we use is a flanker test, which um is probably the hardest one to implement. That's why we needed this additional piece of equipment, the controller, but it's also the one that we we thought had the richest data set. So we can look at things like your impulse control, your speed of processing new information before you make a decision, right? Um, what what how you perform under distraction conditions versus non-distraction conditions, your accuracy, uh how your memory is performing while you're doing the task, how long you hold on to errors after you've committed them, right? Some people, you're still thinking about it, you know, uh, you know, 400 milliseconds later, you know, that could be a real problem, right? So, so it's really rich in information and it's quite a robust set of data. So, because of that, we were able to build this clock that has an accuracy that's approaching the MRI biological brainage clocks. So that was so like for us, so exciting because our goal was to create something that would be repeatable and actionable, right? So even if you look at uh MRI brainage clocks, uh, you know, it's expensive, it's cumbersome. Like I don't know if you've ever had an MRI done, but I I have, unfortunately, many times. And you don't, it's not something you really wish to do very often, right? This is something you could do quarterly, even monthly. It takes 15 minutes. It's a light helmet, it's it's you know, uh just uh a little bit of an intensity, uh speed and accuracy for 15 minutes is actually, I think, pretty fun. Um, and then because it is upstream from an MRI, in the sense that an MRI is capturing structure, we're upstream in the neurological signal stage. We can actually change it. Because you know, I I I kind of I get stuck on like measuring something that you can't change um is sort of uh it's it's a bit moot, right? And so once you've you've seen you know uh loss of mass in the brain, like I don't know how you might reverse that, right? So we're looking at a stage where there's still um prevention and and there is uh training that can be done to slow things down and improve things.
SPEAKER_00So your company is called Sensei, and is the device called the Sensei device, or what's it called?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's called the Sensei uh headset. Okay, um, and we we have a sensei app. And so so it is uh a lot of neurotechnology modalities embedded into one system. And so we talk about the testing, that's only one of three sort of modules. So we talk about it as boost, train, and assess. So the assessments is what we've been talking about in the the aging category, the brain function testing, capturing the EEG, capturing the HRV. Um, but then the other parts are the interventions. And so boost is what we refer to as neurostimulation, and then training is what we refer to as biofeedback, which includes neurofeedback and HRV biofeedback. And so we wrap the boosts and train together into protocols, into protocols that are recommended after the tests. And then we test at the middle and at the end of each protocol. And so we have protocols that are more leaning to helping people who have anxiety, who have ADHD, uh, brain fog due to aging, brain fog due to COVID, uh, you know, PTSD. But under the underlying thing is that all of these things are tied into the decline of cognitive health span. And so the umbrella, the overall arching umbrella is this holistic view of how can we keep the brain behaving as if it's young.
Why Function Beats Raw EEG Metrics
SPEAKER_00And so you do this test and then you can do these protocols to change the test. So you can actually change the brain with this equipment. That's correct. Yeah, so there's other neuromodulation devices out there. I won't name any brands, but you know, it's more subjective, isn't it? They put them on and people say, Oh, you know, it's it's changed this, I sleep better, I do this, I do this. But they don't seem to have an external validation of that change. Uh, is your company the one of the first companies to do that?
SPEAKER_01Well, yes, I believe so. I think we're we're technology, we're making strides in technology. So I I don't want to disparage the other companies because I think, for example, um, let's say you're doing EEG as a measurement, and you can you can change things like uh peak alpha frequency. It's a great example because I think a couple other companies are looking at peak alpha frequency. What that means is that within um the alpha band, you are sitting somewhere between 8 hertz and 12 hertz. And usually people are around 10 on average. So what if you're above 10, you're going a little extra fast. And so often that's associated with a higher IQ. If you go a little bit lower, right, uh it's it's you're going less fast. However, that is almost like um it's like a fluctuating number. It's not a it's not a this definitive functional number that is objective and that is um, so for example, I would liken it to the weather, right? You can look at the weather conditions of today versus I have a climate model that is predicting what is coming in the month next month, and we have a monsoon coming, right? So um, so what we're doing is I think more of a long-term horizon. It's actually uh it doesn't take away from looking at performance today, but it does tell you if on you're on the trajectory towards burnout, right? And things like that. So are you running a high performance, but maybe low efficiency? Right. So so I think that's more meaningful, especially as we age. But the earlier we catch it, the better. So I think it's it's it's a new level of information on the brain. I think it is an unlock. I'm I'm you know very proud of the work of our team on doing this. Um, so I do think it is it is novel in this space.
SPEAKER_00So take us through the journey of the inception of this idea to this combination of of research and and what you have now. Where where did it all start?
Assess, Boost, Train: The System
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I was actually running um another startup at the time, and then I had a car accident. And, you know, it it's like a lot of things. Your health doesn't matter until it's the only thing that matters, right? Like you know this. So um, so I was so um my life was turned upside down with that. So I lost my independence, is probably the main thing to share here. So as much as I had uh physical um implications, I ended up having neck surgery. Like it was pretty serious. Um, and uh the biggest impact in my life was that I couldn't do regular things for myself. And I became very dependent on my husband. I had to choose to, I I chose to focus all my energy and mental power on work. And so I didn't have much more to give. And I became quite insular from a social perspective. But um, in that in that journey, that as hard as that was, I realized that there was a gap in the traditional medical system. Now I I live in Canada as you do, and um and so you know, is a public health care system, but it's a it's a very good system, right? We have a lot of support. And even um when I started pursuing private care through the neural feedback clinics and things like that, I found that there was still no real objective guidance for healing from the brain. So brain maps, EEG scans, you know, MRIs, there was a limitation to that to actually really helping me understand am I on the right track to improving this, right? Versus the subjective, exactly like you said. Like I could feel like, for example, when I overcame PTSD because suddenly I could get in a vehicle, right? I so there were things that were obvious, but I wanted to understand better objectively and be able to track it. And and so I knew that neurotechnology, like neurofeedback, really worked from my personal experience. I knew there were anecdotal cases, yes. I knew there were studies, but there weren't enough. They weren't randomized, they weren't necessarily controlled, they weren't big enough because there just wasn't funding for it. And so when I started creating Sensei, now my my educational, my bachelor's is in electrical engineering. Um, you know, I did an MBA subsequently, but I looked at this like an engineer. I'm I'm a systems designer, right? So I think, okay, what are the best modalities that that are out there that can stack at in a way that's additive, that doesn't take away because you got to be careful with stacking. Um and I consulted just some of the best people, the best, most knowledgeable people in the world. And so that's my first stage was how do I gather the best minds on this in a way that's holistic? So not just about brain, it could be brain surgery, psychology, meditation aspects, right? Actual clinical experience, who's everybody's mentor, right? So that's why I had guys like Dr. Drew Pearson and Jake Onkleman on our team. Um, so I was lucky enough to be able to round, uh, round up this these people around this altruistic vision of scaling this, because and that was my that's my nature uh of thinking is how do we systematize it? How do we scale it? But then building on that foundation is learning. So AI was coming. I started in 2018. I knew AI was coming because I'm an engineer. I I thought what we need to learn to build is a learning system. So it needs to not just measure, it needs to intervene with best of class modalities that are non-invasive, completely safe, and learn. And then as we learn, we're going to build this clock. And so that's that's how it started.
SPEAKER_00So you had uh an accident. You had a concussion and some brain injury, is that right?
SPEAKER_01I did. That's right, concussion as well.
SPEAKER_00And so what was it? So a lot of people have accidents and you know they hit their head and so on, but they don't end up building uh you know neuromodulation devices and new companies. What was it that drove you in particular? What was the thing that was missing that you wanted to really sort of get to the bottom of?
Objective Change Versus Subjective Claims
SPEAKER_01Um, you know what? I think I was just impassioned to have something like this, even just for myself, for my mother, you know what I mean? Um, so I one is I was really driven to heal myself. My son was six at the time, and I had to heal myself, right? I I needed to step back into my role of mother and be be you know taking part in contributing to the family, et cetera. Um, that's one. Um, but um, but secondly, I I knew this needed to, I knew this needed to be built. And I wanted it because beyond healing, beyond longevity, it was actually helping me perform to new heights even better than I had been in my 20s. And not just like perform like focus and productivity, like that sort of like base level perform. Like I'm talking about connecting dots, epiphany levels, like just seeing really clearly. Like when I started training, like gamma training, um, gamma brainwave training, then that's where I thought, how do we scale this? Because people need to know that this is in their reach. We have agency on training our brains, and it can change your life. So that's, you know, that's my that's my I don't usually say it that way, but um, that's that's what's in my heart. Like I just thought we have somebody has to build this and we have to make it scalable, and it has to be able to unlock peak potential of a human, right? I mean, we're in the age of AI, right? It's not, we're not in an assembly line. We're not even in like knowledge work or problem solving anymore. We have to go beyond that, and we are capable of going beyond that.
SPEAKER_00So I think there's probably two groups of people listening to this. You've got one group who have had some sort of concussion, some sort of brain injury, and they're like, Oh, I wonder if this can help me. And there's another group, and I'm in this group, who's like, Oh, could I unlock the next level? Like, what's happening here? So uh maybe you can talk us through its usage or the clients who who that uh who've been using it so far out of those two groups, and and maybe say, well, what's the journey of someone with a concussion and and and uh maybe they've got mild cognitive impairment or whatever? How does it help them, the mechanisms? And then how does it help unlock that next level for the people who don't have anything going on with their brain, or at least they don't think they have?
Origin Story: Injury To Mission
SPEAKER_01Right. So now I have to do my mandatory uh we're not a medical device, and so we're not treating conditions. But um, when people, you know, even peak performers have trouble sleeping and have trouble focusing these days and all of all of those things, or or have, you know, childhood uh traumas, right, big or small. So um, so the way Sensei is built is this uh gamified journey that unlocks over time. So it's incredibly safe. We have cooldowns. And typically what it starts with is two foundational elements. One of them is building inner safety, and the other one is learning how to focus without uh distraction and extending that time. So both uh developing that inner safety, that calm, and being able to focus without distraction, uh, it are they are trainable skills. You can train them. And neurofeedback is one of the best ways to get right into the root of the brain function and train it. So the more we do something, yeah, that's just our neuroplasticity, right? The more you do something, the better you get at it. And that goes for the brain as well. So, with uh neurofeedback, the way that works is we are reading the neural activity of the brain at the skull, and it looks like electrical signals. And those electrical signals go all the way from very low, like let's say, you know, like a few hertz, like called delta, which is like a sleep level, all the way to really high frequencies above 40 hertz, which is gamma. That's the one I talked about with the epiphany levels. And um, alpha is somewhere in between where alpha is that calm brainwave. So we would take your brainwave readings, look at your alpha baseline, look at look at where you're riding, like where the frequency is, how it is at the back, how it is at the front. And then we would slowly start training you to increase your alpha brain waves and or or decrease them, right? Depending on what we're trying to do. And what you'll find is the alpha starts growing in the back of the head, and then it moves to start growing in the front, and then it starts synchronizing. So that's sort of the development of the skill of learning how to shift into and out of alpha. So the way we do that specifically is we translate the alpha power and the alpha synchrony into sounds. So you're sitting there with your eyes closed, and now you're experiencing your alpha brain waves in real time, like real time, like 200 milliseconds. So faster than your speed of thought, which is probably closer to 400. So you're getting that instant experience of sound. And you are um basically in a hands-free video game with your alpha brain waves, you're controlling it, and then you start intuitively feeling, oh, this is how it feels. This is how I shift it, this is how I move it up. Oh, when I do this, it goes down. And then the sounds will kind of go down, not just based on the synchrony and the power of your alpha, but also on did you fall start falling asleep? Did you start getting distracted? So we're also looking at the other brainwaves and seeing what's coming in. And so this is actually you directly getting to the root cause of how do I shift in and out of alpha? Why it matters is because alpha is what you want to shift into at the end of your workday. That's where you want to relax with family and friends. You want to, you want to be able to enjoy your life as well and not just be stuck in that prefrontal, you know, beta state that's driving and producing.
SPEAKER_00So it what does it sound like, Ben? If I from what you've talked about. Oh yeah. I'm imagining that uh if everything, if all the gammas are working, areas working correctly, there's like a harmonious noise. And then when I lose concentration, something else comes in, and that tells me I've lost concentration, like a break, something like that.
Designing A Learnable, Safe Platform
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know what, we we decide there's different ways to do it. We decided not to make it a penalizing sound. We decided to go towards silence because the brain naturally wants um sound, as long as it's a pleasing sound. We want sound. So our sounds you can choose between different instruments. There might be a piano, a violin, that sort of thing. And we we know we have a default that kind of is um complementary to what that the state feels like. And and then um we have two sounds in particular. One is the murmur in the background, and you will feel that go up and down, kind of like this continuous flow. But that would not be enough to give you that really real-time feedback. So we also have these discrete sounds. So the piano would would come in um in these like instantaneous moments. Uh and the volume is is what's what's important. And so what you want it is at this very comfortable, high ish volume, consistently going off. And then every once in a while you'll get synchrony as you start tuning synchrony between the front and the back. That's just about the timing of the waves in the front and back. And that will sound like uh more like a bell. We have a variety of different bells, right? So so the intention is that it's it's rewarding, it's pleasing, and you naturally, like innately want that to sound. So you're not thinking about it. And the trick is when people first start doing neural feedback, is actually not moving into thinking in analytical mode, but feeling the sounds and letting it flow through you. So that's that's why we gamified it and hopefully, you know, people uh intuitively learn. The brain will, the brain will intuitively learn. It's our neuroplasticity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can imagine at the beginning it's like your brain is is um creating those, well, your brain is creating those sounds in a in a roundabout way. I understand that. And then maybe you get another thought in and go like, oh, my brain's doing this, and then that's the thought that makes the sound switch up or something like that. That's right, that's right. That's right. Interacting. And also, I think as you're talking now, I was like, okay, I can imagine also being like uh you're playing, my daughter plays the violin, so playing the violin and holding a note, and you have to go backwards and forwards, hold that note, and as soon as you lose concentration, your fingers move, or you don't get the um the instrument in the right place, you're gonna lose that note. And when it's kind of similar to like that, I'm guessing it's very similar, yes.
SPEAKER_01And and if if if um you're a meditator, it feels a lot like you have a very, you know, uh kind guide next to you just tapping you on the shoulder when you lose focus, when when you're when you're losing the depth of that alpha, you know, when you start getting sleepy, just at the right time, just taps you on the shoulder and you you come right back.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. And so this didn't just appear by itself, right? It's taken a while to get here and it's taken some money as well. Can you tell us about your journey to get it to where it is?
Alpha, Gamma, And Real‑Time Neurofeedback
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, for sure. I mean, you know, it started as as uh the question I asked was, well, if if neurotechnology, neurofeedback, I mean, we have transcreen photobiomodulation in there and other things. And I thought, if that's so powerful, why hasn't Samsung done this, Apple done this already? And we thought there's there's some, there's a lot of technology hurdles here for it to go mainstream. And one of the main ones is the electrodes. Now, we put a lot of effort into the electrodes um in trying to get them to be uh soft and cushion-y. So I'm I'm just I'm holding it up for those that are on video. And and it's it's it's pretty good. I think we've made like quite a step function change in these. We have to add a little bit of water to them, but they are not, we're not putting paste in the hair. It should take less than a minute for you to get a clean reading and to be able to start training. And there were certainly like even once we launched, there were hurdles with that, you know, EMF and different environments and all these kinds of things. So, you know, that was uh two and a half years ago when we launched. And this um it's it's come a really long way. Uh, and and we are we we're not done innovating on that front. But the um the other part is manufacturing. So we were manufacturing during COVID, right? Building our supply chain internationally, because why not? We're like, yeah, of course we'll start international. So we started that, and that that was also a lot of learning. Um, I'm glad we did it um that way. And I'm glad we we kept a lot of the learnings in-house. Like we got really hands-on with that when the supply chain was like moving, moving target. Um, so all of that, yeah, you're right, that required funding. So I'll say, like, we we've had a lot of support from our our main investors. Um, I found that it was um easier with with family offices and with with individuals who had had transformative experiences with no neurotechnology already, right? So they already knew um how powerful it could be. Um, a number of those guys in our our lead investor group, they're they're CEOs, very successful people, semi-retired now, um, but they also um they've had burnout, they they they've they've had loss in their life, and they've experienced the benefits of neurotechnology in helping them through that. So they already know. And then once they were able to experience it through our headset with our prototypes and saw our pretty awesome uh scientific advisory board, then it it became pretty easy. That was that was early days. Uh, you know, so far I think we've raised 8 million now. Uh um, and you know, we're we're we're thinking this year, like you know, summer beyond maybe into fall, we will uh we'll be at profitability, right? So we're we we you know we're we're still we're a startup, we're super lean. There are so many things on the roadmap that we wish we had time for. Um, you know, and so you know, funding, funding is definitely uh on on the on my mind, my mind uh a lot. And it's important for us to get the right people on board. We've had so far just delightful investors. Like everyone's been really supportive with their advice, with their introductions and all that sort of thing. So I am wary of now having an institutional come on for our Series A potentially uh towards the summer. Um so I'm being I'm gonna be very careful and selective. Um, but we want people who want to leave a legacy, who believe in the altruistic vision of Sensei, um, that aren't going to rush it so that we can do it right.
SPEAKER_00And you've also just uh not published, but hopefully you'll be publishing a paper. What does that mean for your company?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's, you know, as much as we we've gathered our own internal data because we have this closed loop system, we tried to publish when we have time, um, white papers uh with our scientific board. But we people need to see third-party validity, right? And, you know, it's hard for a startup to spend money on clinical trials. And every clinical trial you do is going to be on one particular thing. So it's one on sleep, right? That's that's hundreds of thousands. And then you you have one on you know, brain fog due to aging. And so um for us, this brain clock in partnership or in collaboration with Buck Institute, that's that's a really validating um data set to publish. Um it's it's amazing that you know they've they've taken time to look at our data, look at the the reversal that we can do with certain protocols, um, and really and and educate us as well, too, right? We're not we're not PhDs in in uh brain or in aging, like they are, they're PhDs in aging. Um so we've learned a lot. And uh that validation, I think, should carry a lot of weight with the right investors. Because we're trying to, I think it shows that we're trying to further the ecosystem and um that we are not afraid to have our data looked at and we are definitely data driven and science driven, right? We're not gonna, we're not gonna do a whole bunch of marketing claims that are not founded. That's not who we are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can imagine this certain segments of the public will be like, whoa, I mean, this is technology is a bit new. What are they messing with my brain? Uh, you know, that I do you ever get that? That sort of not a criticism, but that question leveled at you.
SPEAKER_01You know, less from users and and and the public and more from like certain types of investor groups. Like, yeah. And they're like, hmm, is that is that is that a thing? Uh like, you know, and I we've we've never had a bad experience, um, and they're non-invasive technologies that we've stacked, right? So um, yeah, I mean that that's probably that there's a reason why neurofeedback, TP, TPBM and bineural beats and you know, meditations, which we what we have, they are not regulated. They're not regulated, they're not invasive. So, you know, but at the same time, you know, can you meditate too much and could it hurt, could it give you a headache? Yeah, it could. And then so similarly with this, I guess, um, we've put cooldowns in to avoid that. Um, and then if you do have like a headache or something like that, it'll go away the same way it would with the meditation over doing it with meditation. So a couple hours, I would think, you know, but it's not meant for people who have conditions, right? So um, you know, there's there's a bit of a bit of that as well. I when you're in the wild and consumers, um, there are some things that people should really need to go to see a person, they need to see a clinician. There's a reason for that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, I mean, you mentioned earlier you put in the medical disclaimer there when I was talking about concussions and things. So if a person has uh something like that, some cognitive impairment, some concussions, you're saying that this is not what it's designed for. Or I I'm not quite sure.
Sound Design And Gamified Feedback
SPEAKER_01Um if people I would say if you've been diagnosed with something, you should see your clinician or doctor, right? If you know you have something, um that's not what we're meant to be addressing. Now, in in because you said that now I'm thinking I should share that we have just expanded into clinics. So that's a that's an important part of this. We recognize that there are uh there's an application for this um that is uh for clinicians to to do. And so, for example, when we launch Brain Years as a product, which will come in the spring, we will be launching that into clinics. And it will come with a comprehensive report that will talk about practical things like how efficient is the brain, right? Like how um how quick is the brain, how you know, uh, how is the memory uh aspect? And and and it will help the clinicians fill in that puzzle piece of brain to all the other testing that they're doing. But it's only at that level of abstraction where you can actually do the holistic uh diagnosis and help the the individual, right? We're we're just a technology and we're just at home self-serve. So the clinician will get the brain years results and the comprehensive comprehensive report, and we will do some level of training on just what all the little signals mean, right? All the little squiggly lines. So then we um so that's that's our approach to that. And then the clinician can then um send them home for neurofeedback. Uh, but they could also do the stimulation in the clinic. So there's a combination, I think, that is ideal for the ultimate. If if we're optimizing for the best for the individual at home, I think that's the ideal because neurofeedback ideally is done regularly. There and and so going into a clinic, it doesn't sustain, right? So doing that at home in parallel with the other two being done in a clinic, that feels like it works.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I see. You're you're you're tiptoing a really nice line there. I like it between saying that, oh yeah, it can help this, but actually, I think what well what I'm taking away from this is that when the clinician diagnoses something and you're working with the clinician, they say, okay, yeah, you've got these things that are coming out on the reports that are like suboptimal. We know this device can help you bring those back to optimal. Uh that's right. Here's a protocol.
SPEAKER_01That's right. We're not looking at anxiety or ADHD, we're looking at biomarkers, right? And we're optimizing the biomarkers. We're looking for efficiency of the brain, flexibility of the brain, right? So it's it's not disease driven.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. This is similar to like a blood test where you could have blood tests that there's a few things that are off in the blood test. Now the clinician has to work out whether it's X, Y, or Z. And if it's Z, this person's in severe trouble uh and needs this treatment. But if it's it could be X as well and so on. Yeah, I get that. It's uh Yeah, interesting. Okay, so what about people who well, who are your customers then? Who who wants to buy, who wants to buy this? Are these the people who want to optimize a little bit more or whom?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it for us, um, because we started in D2C, I would say D2C is primarily people who are very motivated. So as much as we've tried to make this as absolutely simple as possible, as pleasurable as possible. So you're like, oh, good, I get to go sit for 15 minutes, close my eyes, and do this training. Um, as people, some people still won't do that, right? The same reason some people won't use their gym membership or they need a gym coach, right? So the people who are really motivated tend to be, I we find like, you know, late 30s, mid-30s, um, all the way to like late 50s. That that's that's kind of our our critical mass. And they are people who are top performers, very successful, and they notice the decline starting, like they're starting to notice symptoms, and they're not gonna have it. They're driven people and they're gonna take care of it. And so that's that's our our core group and incredibly motivated group. Now, um, when we're going in into clinics, I think it's longevity clinics. Uh, it's it's functional medicine clinics, it's people who are clinics that are looking holistically at the person and they want that brain puzzle piece to come in because it's connected to everything else. So uh people who are driven by markers, you know, by gathering data and they're doing that sort of analysis already, those are the people who want that sort of information that we're able to provide with brain mirrors.
R&D, Hardware Hurdles, And Funding
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's something that I find with my client base, you know, physically they say, Oh, I can't do this thing anymore. And uh, what can I do about it? And then ask the question, the older older people get, they ask a question of why can't I do this? And what can I do to fix it? And you know, there's exercises and training and so on that we can do physically. But it's interesting, the question about, oh, I used to be able to do this with my brain, that doesn't come up so much. And I feel like it's not talked about enough because we all experience it, right? We all experience uh, you know, like I personally I used to be able to do some crazy maths in my head, can't do that anymore. Um, because I just haven't used it that way. And I know that piece of the brain that used to be able to do that's just atrophied or whatever, you know, the connections I guess aren't as strong as they once were. I don't think it's atrophy, but yeah, it's uh you're raising a really good question with this.
SPEAKER_01And I I think the reason we don't talk about it is because we don't think that we can do anything about it. So we don't think we have agency, we don't think we have control. So it's like, why would I get my test for my memory or myocondium impairment when I know it's just gonna be bad news and then I'm gonna be a little bit, you know, depressed by it, right? So I think that we have accepted for too long that people as we age, you look at your parents, your grandparents, and you're like, yeah, they they can no longer keep up with the conversation. They tell the same stories over and over. They can't have a deep conversation with, you know, uh their grandchildren, right? Because they don't they they don't understand what's going on anymore. They've lost track. And um maybe they've lost curiosity or they can't dive as deep into concepts. So we accept that, like, okay, they're kind of past their prime. And I think we need to not accept that. I think we need to understand that that's completely in our sphere of control. And the earlier we catch it, the better, of course, right? So you were talking about like MRIs and looking at structural changes in the brain. Well, when it gets to that point, it's too late. How are you going to intervene at this point? I don't know if you can. Um, so if we're catching upstream where it's neurological and we can see that we can improve that within a couple months, well, that should be very empowering, right? People should feel excited about that and want to like jump in and get way ahead of it. We can actually, in our data, we can actually see decline in the 20s. Right? Yeah. So so that's the so decades before MCI would even appear at all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's some interesting research with Alzheimer's where I remember in this thing, they went back and looked at uh nuns actually, looked at the diaries of nuns and then I don't know if you're familiar with this one, but the diaries of nuns and the the nuns who used a certain sentence structure and certain um certain words that were limited. Let's say you constantly used a couple hundred words in your writing, and the nuns who didn't get Alzheimer's used 300 words, and it was the ones who used simpler sentences, less words, um, and didn't construct the sentences in a comp complex way or think of future concepts or past concepts and so on. They sort of mapped that and they realized that those were the ones that got Alzheimer's. And whether or not that's a brain, I was debating this with someone, whether or not that's a brain thing, that they could they lacked those connections in the brain, or like you were saying, maybe the the the hurts were a little bit less with the IQ, or whether it was an education thing prior to becoming a nun, I don't know. But I thought it was interesting that they could spot from reading a person's diary who was more likely to get outside of the screen. Right.
SPEAKER_01Now, and I wonder now, maybe those nuns were reading more. So why was the vocabulary broader? It it it could be those things you said, uh like education, etc. But it could also be that they're actually curious, they're learning still, right? So it'd be interesting to understand the habits underneath of the that.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I also had uh a guy called Dr. Tommy Wood on the podcast, and he um talked a little about brain health. And one of the studies he quoted and put together was uh put together on the podcast was this group of musicians uh who were professional musicians and amateur musicians, and they looked at their brain activity, and you kind of think that the more complex the music played by the professionals, the more brain was to be used. But it actually turned out to be the other way that the amateurs used more of their brain because they were still learning the music, and the professionals were very confident playing it, and they actually the brain became quite efficient and didn't use as much the brain. And so his argument was that in order to stave off uh age-related um sort of cognitive decline, you can't just do a sudoku. You have to do something that's really challenging, like learning a language, learning a new dance, or something like that, physically as well as mentally. Does Sensei sort of challenge the brain in that way?
Validation With The Buck Institute
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. I'm glad you raised that. You're right. So I think it is about increment, like challenging yourself incrementally. So every time you do, let's say we talked about the alpha brainwave training, we're raising the bar each time. And we have um we personalize it to you in that we know how much we can push you. So we track you over time in what that baseline is. We know if you've just you're just having a bad day, you didn't have a good sleep. And so what we might nudge you less. We, you know, we um, but all in all, we're trending you upward. We're always challenging you a little bit more. Um, but at the same time, the other aspect of sensey, which I think is is really important in in the way the system was designed, is that it's about flexibility. We're not just training alpha and we're not just training beta, which is focus. Those are the two most common, right? And they're they're foundational. You have to do those two before you get to all the other ones, the fun ones. But um, we will train alpha theta and theta gamma and you know, alpha gamma and just pure gamma, and and and we'll train different different types of alpha um and and different types of beta. And, you know, so it's and we're stimulating it. So what we're doing is we're at it's kind of like a crossfit for the brain. You need to have flexibility and know how to shift states, and that's what gives you resilience, right? So um I I think of um like if you have two engines running and they're producing the same amount of output, but one is running hot and noisy, and the other one's running really cool and smooth, right? That's sort of that's about efficiency. And so what we're trying to do is build a brain that's efficient and flexible. And uh, and so that that's I think essential. It's essential. It's not just about one brainwave state. That's what we tend we tend to, I don't know what it is, but in our society we've we've really um optimized for productivity, right? And I think that's that's just not a complete picture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Can you give us a couple of uh case examples? So um I know you're data driven and and there's research behind it, but I don't know. I like listening to, and I'm sure my listeners do, love listening to like this person who tried it and experienced X. Or maybe you can share your own personal story, like where were you cognitively before and where are you now? What's the difference?
Safety, Noninvasive Tech, And Cooldowns
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, I mean, I we we get um you know unsolicited testimonials all the time, which I love, love, love. I love reading them, especially on Friday afternoons, actually. It's like makes the week sort of worthwhile. Like it's um so I I find that the best stories are to do with so okay, I'm thinking I can think of one where people it was a a woman in in her forties who Went back to school and it was about her ability to learn. And she's like, I feel like I'm, you know, back in my 20s and I'm able to learn quicker again. And this wasn't the case last semester, right? And so, so that's that's really powerful. You have to be able to learn, especially in this age of AI. Uh um, and so that's great. Another one I was thinking of is um a man who he he got it for productivity at work. And a lot of times, you know, people buy it for productivity. It's fine. Um, but what he was sharing was the difference in his family life, in his home life, and his ability to listen. So if you think we think about focus like I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna like just crank out this white paper or whatever, or I'm gonna, you know, um, whereas it's actually about us being patient and being present with somebody and actually attentive sometimes too. And we lose that. We lose that with all this. We're training ourselves to scroll, right? We're training ourselves to be distractable. But when you start getting that back, and you know, he was saying his wife noticed it and he was less impatient with his children. Um, that's huge. That's huge. That that's life-changing. That changes your day-to-day experience.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't, I think we'll be a little bit less uh impatient with our children, or at least I could.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We have to savor the moments, right? Like I'm my my son is 16 now. Um, and like I can hardly believe how the time has flown. And a lot of it is is about being present with them when you're with them and not being on your phone and you know, pushing off that meeting when you have that time together. Um, it so it is about actually not making more time, but being here now, right?
SPEAKER_00That's true. I was driving in the car a while back with I've got a blended family, and we have three teenage girls and and um and my son, and we're all having a laugh and a joke in the car and driving back from some family events. And uh it dawned on me that this it was Christmas time, it might be the last time we're all together in the car before they get because they're 15 years old, uh girls. So before they get jobs, before they get boyfriends, before they have other distractions. And it was the last time, maybe the last time I could just go, okay, everyone in the car, we're going to this thing. And everyone went, okay. Like there was no there was no objections because no one had anything else to do. Yeah. We get older, that will change.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So what's next for for you and your your role in leading this uh this technology, leading Sensei, leading your company?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I think a big part of this is what's next is scaling, right? So we again we have that like such a tiny team, everybody's so dedicated, you know. But I I don't want to burn everybody out. And, you know, we're we have so much to do more than we have time. So when when I think about the data that we have yet to scratch, or like we're just like, oh man, there's so much learning, there's so many questions we could do. We have to build more AI models, we have to get more data analysts, we have to staff up the data side of our company. So that's what I hope to do with with our series A. Um, and in addition, is you know, how are we going to start personalizing further with what we've learned from the Brain Yours AI model, right? So there are biomarkers. We have over 700 biomarkers, and we have to explore that. We have to explore that and think about what does this mean for the interventions, right? So that that's also super exciting. And of course, it's about scaling uh, you know, impact, right? So we're we're going into clinics uh this spring, and uh, and then we we just want people to um we want to educate, actually, is what we need to do. We need to educate in a way that is really practical um and easy to deploy. We don't want to be another system that just sits on the shelf, doesn't get used, and that people feel like it's hard. We want it to be easy to use and we want people to get excited about it. So that education process is what we're gonna start this this spring and summer.
Clinics, Brain Years Reports, And Biomarkers
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nice. I I I wear a whoop and they do a really good job of um educating, yeah. They don't gamify too much, but I tell you, my partner's got one of my I got one. We're constantly looking at our whoops. Um the second time I've had it as well. I had it a few years ago. So I thought I've kind of like figured it out. Uh, but I've moved country since then. So now all my sort of references are off. So I'm redoing, I'm redoing my sort of personal uh health in this new country. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I oh sorry, I was gonna say Whoop actually partnered with Buck Institute to build their age clock as well, just out of interest. And I think I think there's an element that to be learned from the body um and in what we're doing with the brain. And one of the things that they've really nailed is recovery, right? So, and this kind of ties into resilience. So you can put the brain under stress, but how quickly do you recover? So the younger the mind is, the quicker it recovers. So, how do we keep improving that recovery? And and we think we we we have good hypotheses for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is interesting, and there's there's things around recovery that I've found out for myself that you don't anticipate. For example, uh, if I read uh the news at night, my recovery is shot. If I read action at night, I'm good to go. It's little things like that that actually affect my heart rate, my HRV, my respiration rate. I'm like, how does that affect it? But it does. And of course, I also remember again, Tommy Wood, we talked about uh people being in the flow state. So when you find that sort of zone that you're in, like a musician who's playing or the heat comes from Formula One, so Formula One driver driving at that intense uh intensity for the um the entire race, that the flow state we kind of we want to achieve that when we're working, but actually it's very, very high energy consumption to keep you there. And the recovery after the flow state needs to be longer. And I don't think people appreciate that either, that they sort of they think they're they're nailing it at work and they're great, and then they can do it again the next day and then again the next day, because we like you said earlier, we we prioritize productivity, but then we hit burnout. And to have tools like Sensei or or Woop giving us feedback on how close we're pushing those boundaries is really fantastic.
SPEAKER_01Yes, super important.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so when someone buys the Sensei device, they get the the actual um thing they can put on their head, it comes with the the the earphones and then it comes with these sensors as well. And there's five different uh interventions, is that right? That's right. Okay, and how does that compare to other um sort of tr transcranial tools and devices out there that sort of maybe do something similar?
Who Buys It And Why Motivation Matters
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, well, we we thought that there is power in the stack. So if if I were to go to some of the top neuroclinics, they would actually be stacking, they'd be using lots of different equipment, but they would be stacking some best in class modalities. And so we just thought we would stack them all into one headset. Why not? Why not? Why not complicate the system? So um, so part of it is there's um there's the concept of a neural primer. So you kind of stimulate the neuroplasticity, and that's what you do with a boost, right? So we talk about it as boost, train, and assess. And so the boosts have uh we use light therapy to do that. It's called transcranial photobiomodulation, uh, which is LEDs. It's specialized LEDs. We have seven of them on the device. We use a wavelength that is 810 nanometers. Um, you'll see other devices out there that have 810 nanometers. Some of them have uh one in the thousands, a thousand seventy, I think, in nanometers. Um, 810 is the one that addresses the kinds of things that we're interested in uh around anxiety and focus and the other things we talked about. Um but the key thing is that TPBM is actually very powerful for aging because it stimulates the mitochondria. And the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. And so we're talking about energy production, about stimulating the actual energy in your cells, and that increases blood flow, it reduces inflammation. So it's really important for aging. And that's that's well understood in the in the aging science world. So, what's unique about our TPBM just on its own as one of these five intervention modalities, is that we personalize the frequency. So if we're stimulating alpha, we don't just stimulate at 10 hertz like other T PBM devices. We will look at, using our EG sensors, we will look at where you are riding within the alpha band, which is between 8 and 12 hertz. And so if you're riding at 10.25, we will note that. And then based on where you're riding, we will stimulate you a little higher or a little lower or maybe right on. And that will be happening and being reassessed throughout your session. So that's that's how we built our TPBM. We found in the early days, like the first five years was RD and beta testing, and we found that some people just wouldn't be responders to TPBM. And it was because we discovered it was because we're simulate simulating them at the wrong frequency. And so some people who are riding higher, if I simulate them at nine and they're at 10.25, they actually don't feel anything. So that that's that's a really key thing.
SPEAKER_00So there's other devices out there that have a fixed frequency. And it may or may not work because your frequency might be lower or higher.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That that's one piece of it too. But um, and so some devices will stimulate uh alpha only or gamma only or alpha and gamma only, or some of them will become more complex, and then you have to program it yourself. What we've done is we've incorporated nine programs that we've already done beta testing on um that we we can see in our EEG and in our ERPs, move the needle, and they're already simple to use, right? So we would have uh like a chill boost, you know, that is stimulating you at a low alpha, right, based on your center frequency again, right? Versus we have a prepare boost that stimulates you a bit higher uh than your center frequency alpha. And so the difference is that chill will feel uh like you're you took pot, right? It's actually it's it's you feel really chilled out versus the prepare is actually feeling like a nootropic. It's increasing your peak alpha frequency and you feel like ready to go, right? In this really calm way, but really ready to go. Um, so that's the kind of precision we have in in our boost programs. And I would add that we don't just do TPBM, we stack it with bineural beats and meditations. And so that is incorporating not just the container, which is the brain, but also the mind, right? That's why we include meditations. The the philosophy, the psychology of what's going on with you is intimately tied to your brain. And so we can augment results with the meditations.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's amazing. And that's part of the reason I wanted to get you on the podcast. It seems to me that this is one of the most complete tools out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we like to think so. I mean, I think that's why it took so long in RD. But but um yes, yes, we we are we're hoping to um make some discoveries that we can share and really um you know be a leading voice in this next frontier, which we think is is brain health and brain health span in particular.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00How can people find out more about uh about the company?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh so the name of our company is the same as our URL. So it's sensei, pronounced just like the Sensei Master, uh, and it's S-E-N-S dotai. And for our white papers uh slash results, uh, if you want to dig a bit into the science slash science. And uh there's also a page for professionals that starts teasing about brain years uh and what we're going to release in the spring.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. Yeah. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you so much, Ed. Great to great to uh talk to you today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for joining me in my conversation with Paula. Now, for listeners interested in sense.ai or sensei for their personal use, it's actually available for home use with a personal membership. And this is great for regular brain regulation. So things like focus, sleep, and resilience. Now, for clinicians, there is a professional base membership. So clinics can start actually using the boosts and they can do this in their practice. And uh Sensei is seeing some great uptake in the uh talk therapy, peak performance and longevity uh space and those types of clinics. Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast, and if you're an Apple, I'd love it if you could leave me a review and maybe even a five star review would be great. Remember, if you're my direct help with anything, send me an email, ed at edpaget.com. Visit my website, edpaget.com, where you can learn a little bit more about how you can make your lifestyle your medicine.