Bryan Johnson's team built a neural imaging helmet that measures brain activity in one minute using light. He tested it on ketamine's effects in healthy volunteers, arguing that brain data beats self‑reports, which he calls vague and unreliable for understanding mental states like sleep quality or drug response.
We built a neural imaging helmet. You just put it on your head. It takes one minute to set up. It uses light to measure the brain activity and these brain activity patterns are extremely informative. So for example, I was a pilot participant for a ketamine study. Ketamine has been used for the treatment of depression. We use it as an off label study with healthy people. But the question is, what does ketamine do to your brain? Someone can do ketamine. They can be like, hey Sam, how was ketamine? I don't know, a different dimension and I think I feel better, but I'm not sure. But it's kind of like, how was your sleep for the past week? It's an extremely imprecise answer. And you're going on this subjective self assessment. Your memories fade and you don't really know and it's a disaster. This measurement system is basically meant to standardize the measurement of the brain.
