00:00This is a brain scanning headset from Kernel,
00:03a startup Brian Johnson founded years before he was famous for trying to live forever.
00:08The company says it could one day help doctors treat patients
00:12and give companies new ways to understand what consumers want.
00:15I went to Kernel's headquarters in Los Angeles to test it out.
00:19What are you doing with this data? Where is it going? And are you going to try to control my
00:24brain?
00:24We're not going to try and control your brain. We want you to control your brain.
00:28It's really about trying to give individuals agency and the information to better care for their brain.
00:33The Kernel Flow headset took 10 years to develop and uses lasers to measure brain activity.
00:38Think of it like an Apple watch for the brain, but heavier.
00:42I'm very aware of my neck muscles not being in shape.
00:45Better brain data could match patients with the right medication for conditions like depression,
00:50ADHD, OCD, and cognitive decline. And it's not just medical.
00:55Companies could eventually mine the data for insights on consumer preferences for things like potato chips and soda.
01:01One of the least well understood organs in our body is our brain.
01:05And the reason for that is that there weren't good technologies for measuring it.
01:10And I think brain and human data could be a really interesting next phase of AI.
01:18So what did I learn? Turns out my brain is, well, fine. Aging on pace, cognition in the 75th percentile,
01:27and standout scores for switching tasks and focusing. My language score was the worst.
01:32They asked, like, you know, okay, the letter J, name words that start with the letter J. And somehow I
01:39could only think of, like, three words. I don't know what happened.
01:42And my brain, like, panicked.
01:44Yeah, it was interesting because I felt, like, extremely competitive. Like, I had to defend my brain.
01:51Experts in neuroimaging told me it could take at least a decade for this brain data to yield major breakthroughs.
01:55For now, Kernel sells its headsets to researchers, private companies, and longevity clinics tracking brain fitness.
02:01And at $117,200, it's not exactly consumer tech just yet.
02:07It's like fake dramatic motions.
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