Elevated intracranial pressure resulting from an injury or disease is a dangerous condition that can be life threatening, painful, and debilitating. Because our thick skulls don’t allow for traditional external pressure monitoring, invasive methods that penetrate the skull have been used. And so, while the monitoring of a variety of conditions has progressed along with time, intracranial pressure monitoring continues to be rooted in the 20th century.
HeadSense, a company out of Netanya, Israel, has been working on a non-invasive monitor that sends and detects sound waves to measure intracranial pressure. It looks like a generic mp3 player, but instead of playing music the ear buds play tones of different frequencies and measure how they sound from the other side of the head. A Bluetooth enabled tablet receives the data from the HeadSense device and analyzes it to provide a final output of the pressure.
The company has just announced investments from GE Ventures, Everett Partners, Pontifax, and others, that will help the firm move its technology toward commercialization.
Technology info page: HeadSense…
Press release: HeadSense Secures Financing for Non-Invasive Neurological Monitor
More from GE: It’s Not Brain Surgery: These Earbuds Can Measure Brain Pressure, No Drills Required