Reading the Brain Without Opening the Skull | Tom Oxley, Synchron

New episode with Dr. Tom Oxley, co-founder and CEO of Synchron. Synchron has built a BCI called the Stentrode, which reaches the motor cortex via a blood vessel — leveraging the approach of cardiovascular stents, without having to open the skull at all! 15 million people live with motor impairment. The Stentrode lets people operate their phones and computers through thought, and could restore independence to people who've lost the ability to control their devices.  Tom sees BCIs as a major technological leap that will help human flourishing, by enabling better communication, decoding and conveying emotions, and enabling us to leverage the great capabilities of our computing infrastructure.This was a great, wide-ranging conversation. We discuss the origins of Synchron, the endovascular approach and its benefits, their next-gen system designed for high-channel-count recordings across distributed brain regions, the longer-term possibilities of helping people communicate better, how Tom developed as a founder and how he leads the company, how BCIs could unlock powerful mental states similar to psychedelics and meditation, how neurotech will transform humanity in the 2030s and 2040s, and why Tom thinks the US will lose the BCI race to China unless the US greatly accelerates. Hope you enjoy!Links to this episode and references below. Topics covered:00:00:00 Introduction00:03:18 Carl Jung, stroke surgery, and the road to BCI00:06:58 The endovascular approach: reaching the brain without surgery00:10:37 Getting Synchron off the ground00:17:23 Reading the brain: channels, signal, and noise00:36:41 The numbers: 15M patients, FDA, and Medicare00:43:17 Cognitive AI: foundation models, the data economy, and the 2040s00:52:55 Consciousness, psychedelics, and the extended self01:02:51 Agency, addiction, and geopolitics01:06:51 The optimistic vision: unlocking the subconscious01:10:49 Building a company: 696 no's01:21:30 Losing the BCI lead to ChinaLinks From the Podcast EpisodeGuest + OrganizationsTom OxleySynchronTom Oxley on XSynchron on XResearch Papers + Technical References"Neuronal ensemble control of prosthetic devices by a human with tetraplegia" (2006)"Minimally invasive endovascular stent-electrode array for high-fidelity, chronic recordings of cortical neural activity" (2016)DARPA Revolutionizing Prosthetics program (2004–2008)Meta open-sourced sEMG (neural wristband) datasets at NeurIPS 2024References Mentioned in ConversationNeurIPS conference Woman with cochlear implant hearing for the first timeBooks + MediaThe Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology by Nita FarahanyNexus by Ramez Naam — BCI sci-fi referenced by Juan for its depiction of shared emotional states between humansDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Juan & Protocol LabsProtocol LabsPL NeuroJuan Benet Podcast on YouTubeJuan Benet Podcast on SpotifyJuan Benet Podcast on AppleDisclaimer⁠