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Importantly for research, Picard says, the device specifically detects stress signals from the sympathetic response of the autonomic nervous system, which is commonly associated with the fight-or-flight responses indicative of stress and seizures. “When we measure the skin response, we are seeing signals that originate deep in the brain, from regions so far under the scalp that a traditional EEG cannot pick them up,” Picard says.
In that way, the E4 is also valuable in studying other neurological conditions such as autism, anxiety, depression, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Picard adds. “A PTSD researcher, for instance, may use the device to more accurately study why and how a patient may experience heightened flight-or-fight responses,” she says.
Staying in the medical space
Empatica’s core technology traces back to 2007, when Picard and researchers developed iCalm, a similar EDA-measuring wristband. In 2009, Picard and former postdoc Rana el Kaliouby co-founded Affectiva to commercialize the wearable device, then called the Q Sensor, to be used for measuring stress associated with autism.
Then one day when a student borrowed two wristbands to monitor the stress levels of his little brother with autism. He put one wristband on each wrist. When Picard checked the data remotely from her computer, she noticed “a whopper of a response on one side and nothing on the other,” she says. “It was such a big response, I didn’t believe it was real.”
Nothing she did in her lab could reproduce such a response. However, the student had kept a diary and, sure enough, on the exact date and time of the “whopper” response, the brother had had a seizure. As it turns out, minutes before someone has a seizure, the hair on one arm may stand on end.
But Affectiva soon changed course and began developing software that monitored and quantified people’s emotions for market research. So Picard founded another startup, Physiio, “to help the technology grow in the medical space,” Picard says. This caught the attention of a small, Italian, stress-tracking-wearable startup co-founded by Matteo Lai and Simone Tognetti. In 2014, the two companies merged to form Empatica, with Lai as CEO and Tognetti as chief technology officer.
Since then, Empatica has produced several iterations of the E4 for clinical use, with the most recent version released last year. But now the startup is “laser-focused” on bringing the Embrace to consumers, Picard says.
So does Picard — the consumer — use her own device? Yes, and she says the wristband has revealed interesting things about her own life. “The first time I wore this, I’m driving home and it’s going off, and I think, ‘I guess I’m letting myself get a little bent out of shape here,’” Picard says. “I’ve found it fabulous to learn about what’s going on with myself.”
