How MindMics is Transforming Earbuds into Acoustic Health Sensors: A Discussion with Dr. Anna Barnacka

Hello everyone and welcome

to this Week in Hearing.

A topic of conversation for a

long time has been the potential

for integrating health sensors

into ear-worn devices.

Though not insignificant so far,

hearable health sensors have

been in only limited ways due to

a mix of factors including

comfort,

battery drain and lack of

compelling use cases to

drive consumer demand.

But a lot of developments are

taking place to solve these

issues so that we may soon see

the ear taking its place

alongside the watch as a health

monitoring platform. In fact,

that year has a bright future

as an ideal place to gather

biometric data.

One company working towards this

future is MindMics with its

innovative system for monitoring

heart rate and other

characteristics acoustically.

To learn more about Mind.

In particular and the future of

video health sensing

more generally.

I have with me today Dr.

Anna Barnacka, founder and CEO.

Anna is actually traveling

at the moment,

and I want to thank her

for joining us,

despite being in a hotel lobby.

Appreciate you spending time

with us today, Anna.

Welcome to the show.

Please tell us a little bit

about yourself and MindMics.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Anne Barnacka and

I’m CEO and founder of Mindmics.

MindMics is a technology

platform.

We are really a software

platform that turns earbuds into

GPS for health and well being.

We’re not using the optical eye

like traditional wearable

devices.

We’re using the sound wave.

And from the sound wave that

our body is producing,

we can unfold the whole

story of our health,

starting with the cardiac health

with parameters like heart rate,

our variability.

But that’s just the beginning.

The way,

how we scratching the surface of

what sound waves can tell

us about our health.

That’s really interesting,

and I want to dive into the

technology in more detail.

But before we do that,

I’m always fascinated with

people whose career paths

are not linear.

So can you tell me and everyone

else a little bit about what you

were doing before you founded

MindMics and why you

started the company?

It’s absolutely my pleasure.

And nonlinear struggle is

definitely the way

to describe it.

Or if you think about I like

to say that I’m by training

physicists and astrophysicists,

and physics is everywhere.

It’s the same physics that

applies to the black holes as

well as applies to human body.

But to go back to your question,

I was an astrophysicist,

actually,

before starting MindMics I was at

Harvard working as a NASA

Einstein fellow,

diving into understanding

how supermassive black hole.

Work and spin all of that matter

and relativistic jets and a lot

of extreme phenomena using

FX regression lensing.

But at the same time,

hard work took me to the place

of a lot of physical exhaustion.

So I needed a way to monitor my

health and definitely I didn’t

want to slow down and take

breaks as when you

are at Harvard,

you feel that the whole universe

is open with the possibilities

and independently wanted to take

those opportunities ahead of me.

So I thought, okay,

I’ve been always solving

problems through science.

So I had to use the skills I had

into turning galaxies into

telescopes and I literally

helping them building telescopes

to build something to zoom into

my own health and have like

something that would give

me accurate information.

So this is how my journey

started from being an

astrophysicist to using those

skills to help me.

Better navigate my own health.

That has to be the broadest

journey I’ve ever heard going

from studying interstellar space

to what’s happening within a

person’s body. I love it.

It’s a lot of many orders

of magnitude.

Now,

you mentioned that the MindMics

system is working acoustically.

Help us have a better

understanding of that.

How can you acoustically monitor

a person’s heart rate,

rhythm and other facets of heart

health while a person is

simultaneously listening

to audio?

This is why I have to go back to

the discovery that MindMics made.

And also it goes back a little

bit to my background in

astrophysics as one of the first

things you learn in astronomy is

that how little we actually see

with our own senses in

terms of the eyes,

we only two octaves of light

when what’s out there? It’s sixty.

Octaves of light.

So one octave is a one doubling

of frequencies.

So with MindMics,

the journey is similar.

It’s into what we don’t hear.

We hear about eight to ten

octaves of sound. So actually,

our hearing is extremely

powerful.

But still there is a lot of

information that we don’t hear,

especially below 20 Hz.

Below 20 Hz,

we call those frequencies

infrasound.

And those are frequencies

that we cannot hear.

And the reason why we don’t hear

them is because literally our

body is generating a lot of

those very low frequencies and

our brain itself had to evolve

into finding the ways to be

able to filter them out.

Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to

function because we have a huge

pump in our chest that is

pumping liters of blood every

minute and that creates

huge amount of sound.

So our brain learn how to filter

it out so we don’t hear.

Ourselves so we can think about

the full ear canal as a system.

That is,

a transducer brain is using

the transducer,

the ear canal as a microphone to

listen to the world and environment

around us.

But what we discovered MindMics

was that actually that system

can also works as a speaker

in the way that all of the

vibrations created internal

inside our body by the

cardiovascular system,

by the blood rushing for the

arteries, literally every blink,

motion, all of that,

all of those vibrations are

traveling to the ear canal.

And what’s happening there?

The ear canal,

the walls on the ear canal

start vibrating.

It’s a tiny displacement,

but enough to make the vibration

airborne – airborne.

vibration is the sound,

and we add mindmics we can

pick up those sound waves

using regular earbuds.

Today industry moves

tremendously in terms.

Of them what we could be

having in the

earbuds. Five years ago,

when we started MindMics,

earbud only had speakers

inside and cables.

And that was really fascinating

technology to actually

have a good

earbud.

It was just the first wireless

earbuds coming into the market.

So majority of the earbuds only

had speakers inside them. Today,

every earbud has a type of

chipsets and multiple sensors,

multiple microphones,

for example,

for noise cancellation.

And what the video

at MindMics,

we learn to actually use those

microphones that are ready

in the earbud,

usually used for the

noise cancellation,

to listen to those sounds

created by the tiny

displacement

of the ear canal,

created but by every heartbeat

and everything that is happening

internally.

And that’s extremely fascinating

and exciting,

because with sound waves,

we can see what’s inside.

It,

but in a very non invasive way.

Okay.

It’s interesting because I

recently saw a report that said

roughly 75% of earbuds over

$100 have ANC now,

and that survey is a year old,

so it’s probably a

little higher.

And there are many models even

below $100 with ANC.

So what you’re saying is you’re

using the ANC microphone that’s

facing the ear canal in order to

pick up the low frequency

sounds of one’s body,

so it actually doesn’t take

an extra sensor. Correct?

That’s correct.

We can add a purpose for

those microphones.

The other aspect of the

infrasound

that be going below 20 Hz is

that below all of the sounds

we hear below. All right.

It does not include the

voice, doesn’t include music.

So simultaneously,

we can actually move the earbud

to listen to music.

And this does not interfere with

the biosignal that we picturing

that we are capturing

using those microphones.

Of course,

the microphone has to

be sensitive enough

for us.

Was an interesting journey,

as the microphones are not

the specifications do not go

below 20 Hz. Because people,

for the long time thought, okay,

that there’s nothing interesting

happening below 20 Hz.

So why to even bother

characterizing the microphones

that in those low frequency

frequencies? So at MindMics,

we build a whole infrasonic lab

where we can evaluate the

microphones for the performance

below 20 Hz.

We built that lab to evaluate

also the acoustic performance

of the earbud to ensure that

actually the system is tuned

within the parameters for us so

we can detect the biosignals.

But in principle,

to answer your question, yes,

we using the microphones that

very often are ready

in the ear.

Okay,

so there may be some more

specifications to the.

Microphone than an ordinary

ANC microphone.

But once the correct microphone

is chosen,

it can be used for

both purposes.

So you’re not actually putting

an additional sensor

in the earbud,

just the correctly specified

one. Now,

there have been people for a

long time working on putting PPG

sensors, optical sensors,

into earbuds.

What are the advantages of your

system versus an optical sensor?

That that’s a very good

question. So, actually,

interestingly,

the PPG technology,

the optical sensors,

they were first proposed for the

ear because ear is the place

to collect the data.

It’s close to the brain,

close to the heart,

so it’s definitely the right

place. But PPG sensor,

it’s big and it’s hard to

make it smaller and

drains a lot of battery.

So just from that perspective,

MindMics has a huge advantage

because we don’t have

to add extra sensor.

And we know that whenever you

have to add any sensor

to the earbud.

Tiny. It’s a tiny space.

And to make the earbuds

comfortable,

earbuds has to be small.

So adding anything that would

take that very expensive real

estate, it’s tough.

So this is where,

even from that simple reason

of usability,

MindMics is winning.

Because we don’t need

extra sensor.

We will not drain extra battery

because microphone

is already there.

But that’s just the beginning of

the advantages of MindMics.

So when you build the earbud,

it’s a big enough,

it’s large enough to actually

look at MindMic seriously.

And considering it to enable

because it does not

need extra sensor,

which means that it’s cheaper.

You don’t have to add that multi

sensor to that tiny real estate.

But from that perspective,

it’s already exciting.

But that’s just the beginning

of the story. Why

Mind Mics is our technology,

which we called in Ear

infrasonic Human.

Graphic opens the next level of

the insights to our health.

PPG technology is using the

optical light so it can look at

the blood flow just

below the skin,

usually few millimeters

below the skin.

So that part of the blood flow

that is far away from the center

of the action, with MindMics

what we

detect, those acoustic waves,

the sound waves actually comes

from the central part of the

cardiovascular system because

literally the whole system works

as a speaker. And we can detect,

we can literally look

at the heart,

we can look at the central part

of the cardiac system in the way

that today is only possible with

the very invasive procedures.

And an advantage of the

infrasound is that those are

very large waves at 1Hz

the length

Of the sound wave is

about 100 meters.

So when you think at the

distance between the

heart and the ears,

it’s a tiny it’s a smaller

one in the comparison,

which means that we lose

very little information.

So we literally can use that to

have very accurate information

of a central part of the

cardiovascular system as opposed

to seeing the heartbeat when

it’s already modulated by the

changes as the blood is

propagating through the

cardiovascular system.

So this is opening truly a new

way of looking at our health.

Okay,

so because you’re using very

long wave audio and the nature

of the human body,

you’re actually picking up

conducted sound from the central

part of the body,

not merely at the surface of the

ear canal. That’s interesting.

Then that must mitigate other

factors related to PPG sensing.

For example,

at least on wristwatches,

I’ve seen more difficulty

getting accurate measure.

With darker skinned people.

Is it safe to assume that that’s

not a problem when you’re

working acoustically?

It’s very safe to assume

as the waves propagate,

and they don’t depend

on the skin tone.

We internally all the same.

So sound waves can propagate

and skin tone.

It’s not an issue at all.

And that’s just one of the

issues that sound based

technologies have a

huge advantage.

What are some of the others,

when you think,

when you go back about what’s

the nature of the signal itself?

So the PPG sensors,

they only look at the blood

flow just below the skin,

which means that each time

the heart is pumping,

they detect the pump.

For healthy individuals that

have a very good blood

circulation,

those pumps can have also some

extra other features that could

tell us a little bit more about

the health. But whenever,

let’s say your blood circulation

is not as good,

you start losing.

Features with MindMics because

we are really truly looking

at the central

part of the cardiovascular

system.

We did multiple clinical studies

with Scripps Health where we

look where we are comparing the

heartbeats detected in the ear

using MindMics technology,

using looking at those in

ear acoustic pressure.

We’ve been comparing them to

the a heart catheterization,

which is very invasive,

where cardiologists literally

put the probe into people’s

aorta and the heart,

and they look at the

pressure waves,

and we’ve seen very high

correlation between those

waves in the aorta,

the pressure wave blood pressure

in the aorta and in ear acoustic

pressure that detect

with MindMics,

including those tiny features,

those tiny details that tell us

about when aorta is opening,

closing those features of the

human dynamics as the blood.

Is rushing

through the cardiac system and

the forward wave reflected waves

of things that until now only

available through very

invasive procedures.

And we see those details,

we literally with MindMics just to

give a little bit of

taste of that,

we literally see aorta open and

close it in real time when

with optical technology,

you see a bump and you can

calculate how many bumps

you get. And yes,

you get very good heart rate.

So that can you play because

heart rate but technology

sometimes for the health

individuals heart rate

variability can have pretty

good measures as well.

But whenever there’s an issue,

we start losing that

information.

So actually with MindMics,

it’s quite reliable and we can

measure heart variability,

but it is just the beginning

because what we see with our

clinical validation will be able

to see true dynamic of the heart

Okay, so really,

as a first level,

you’re looking at heart rate

and heart rate variability,

but you can monitor

so much more.

And you mentioned clinical

studies.

Are you heading towards FDA

approval for measuring any

characteristics at all?

That’s definitely our ambition.

And we’re trying to understand

what are those characteristics

that we could bring for the FDA.

But we’re not waiting for the

FDA clearance because with the

parameters that we have today,

heart rate variability

especially,

we know that we can enable them

on the devices and also

through our cloud.

We don’t want to wait.

We want to provide those

actionable insights to

the market today.

And in the meantime,

in the background,

working on toward all the

parameters as well

to human dynamics

and other aspects to health and

understand how the path for this

technology will look

like to also.

Our ambition.

But today we’re starting with

the commercialization with heart

rate high viability because this

already can add so much value

and we’re turning it into a lot

of actionable insights within

our dashboard where we’re

turning those numbers into

physiological states and

providing actionable tools like

breath work that people can use

to better manage your stress

recovery and other well being.

Okay,

it actually brings two questions

to mind. I’ll ask the first one,

and that is and I think it’s

worth explaining to the audience

what the role of heart rate

variability is and why

you would measure it.

This is an excellent question

because we all know about the

heart rate and I would say this

is such a great contribution

from all of the wearable

devices,

especially watches going

back ten years ago,

only people would have

heart issues.

They would think about the heart

rate. So definitely we.

Know today why to measure

heart rate.

And that is an important metric.

But heart rate itself doesn’t

give us enough insights

into what’s happening,

how our body is responding.

But when we add to it

higher variability,

this is where we actually start

diving into something that it’s

called autonomic nerve system.

Or you can think about this as a

control system of our body that

is sending controlling

information between brain and

between all of the organs,

and it’s adjusting accordingly

to our needs and to external

and internal stimuli.

And heart variability is one of

those parameters that heart

variability defines how much

variation there is from

heartbeat to heartbeat in

terms of the distance,

duration of that interbeat

intervals, so the time between

the heartbeats.

We often think that our heart

is like a metronome.

And more regular it is,

the better,

but actually the opposite.

Usually when people start

very stressed out,

heartbeat has like a metronome,

like a very stiff metronome that

have the same time between

the heartbeats.

For healthy individuals,

especially when we are in

that recovery state,

there is a huge variation from

the heartbeat to heartbeat

and bigger the variation,

more agile the heart is to

respond to all kind of

stressors, internal, external.

So higher variability is an

indicator of good health.

Higher the heart variability,

the more variation there is

better we can adapt

to the needs.

And also there are ways to

improve the higher variability.

Some of the variables are start

bringing that metric,

but the metric they bring is

usually higher variability

or once per day or

longer period of time,

which is very interesting and

gives a lot of insights

about the recovery.

What we do at MindMics

it’s another.

Another level higher because

we’re looking at this very short

response, very short.

heart variability we’re measuring in

within 20 to 30 seconds,

which literally gives us the

response of our body,

gives us the physiological state

and response to what

is happening now.

So as opposed to reflect later

about what happened,

we can see actually how our

body is responding.

And sometimes we have feel that

something is stressing us out.

But actually higher variability

can show what kind of impact it

has on us in real time just by

looking at those changes.

And it’s a very dynamic

parameter because our body is

very dynamic and is responding

all the time.

So higher variability is this

new metric that people really

start understanding its value

and how actionable

it is as well.

Because I think when we build,

when we think about the data and

providing people insights,

it’s all about,

is it actionable – what can

we do about this?

When you see that your heart

rate variability is

low or large,

what do you do about this?

So the beauty of this parameter

is that with the simple

breathing of this process

and you can change it,

you can increase it,

if you hold your breath,

you will decrease higher

variability very quickly so you

can actually see how much

you can control.

And this is from my perspective

and results of great literature

showing that harder ability is

one of those that is very

actionable and provides can give

us insights on to how our

body is responding to

stressors,

to things that are good for us

and bad. So in this way,

we can start getting pretty good

idea of what’s good for

us and what isn’t.

So going back to my journey

astrophysicist,

I wanted to have that dashboard

that will tell me

see what’s good,

what’s bad and if I should slow

down or I can go faster.

And that’s what we

built at MindMics.

We translated those parameters

into digital, into

dashboard and

That’s what we bring

to the market today based on

those two parameters,

heart rate and high variability

to start.

So you can see for yourself

what’s good, what’s bad,

and how you can build that

better awareness about health

and well being and how

to improve health.

Okay, at the beginning of that,

you said people are mostly

focused on heart rate,

and I’ll confess to being guilty

as charged as the distance

runner heart rate dictates how

you train, essentially.

I never really thought about

heart rate variability.

It seems so counterintuitive

that when the variability

is low,

that’s actually not

a good thing.

And so by interpreting heart

rate variability,

you said that bring actionable

insights. And that, I think,

has always been one of the key

problems with health sensing.

Wearable health sensing.

Because if I look

at my watch and.

Some numbers.

What does it mean to me?

And I look at my watch an hour

later and I see some

different numbers.

What does that mean to me?

So how are you actually building

a system that gives people both

short and long term insights as

to their state of health?

Absolutely.

It’s all about making

it actionable,

not just giving people numbers.

We are overwhelmed with numbers,

especially today.

So it’s all about how

we can help people,

guide them to make

better decisions.

And so I would say what’s at the

core of that change is that

MindMics is building that GPS

for health and wellbeing.

Which means I like using the

analogy to the GPS because this

allows us to build the

closed loop systems.

So to build the actionable

solutions and put it as a part

of the user experience that

people can actually see be what

is their state and how different

interventions or their actions,

what kind of impact they have.

So in this way,

you can make better.

So at the core of that is

enabling the closed loop systems

and this is why I like to use

analogy of GPS that MindMics

that GPS for health

and well being.

So when we think about

GPS itself,

it enabled all of the

solutions like Lyft,

Uber really connected us,

also the Google Maps.

So to make that possible,

that make it actionable,

make that world connected,

that we can actually build new

solutions that actually work and

choosing the parameters.

So once we have the system that

is real time and accurate enough

and we achieved building

accuracy by inventive

technology,

in-ear infrasound

hemodynography that was giving us

this new insights in real time,

but actually building the

analytics in the cloud.

So then for us that the next

thing was to figure it out okay,

which parameters will be the

most actionable that actually.

People can see the change and we

can build the tools as well

simple tools that require small

amount of time and everybody can

do to actually see the change.

So in our case we choose heart

rate and trivia variability

because they are so linked into

our autonomic nerve system.

Our autonomic nerve system has

those two branches sympathetic

and parasympathetic that balance

all the time and it in this case

whenever we go into the fight

and flight we know that heart

rate goes up higher variability

goes down.

That’s why the heart variability

tells us actually now nerve

system is going into fight

or flight as well.

On the other hand,

the other end of the spectrum

which is as a rest

actually body is entering into

that recovery state heart

rate goes up,

but heart rate actually goes

down but it goes out.

So there is that whole seashell

we build our algorithms to

actually create the baseline for

each person and based on

that interpret that.

While we are not spectrum of

the autonomic nervous system.

So in that dashboard in place,

we were looking at different

interventions like breath work.

We all know how to breathe.

We all know how to control

our breath.

And that works like magic,

except it’s a physiology.

I think there is an physiology

and actually that’s something

that just by slowing down yet or

doing it in certain pattern,

we could see very quickly the

changes into our autonomic.

nervous system state.

We can get more calm,

more alert,

depending on what you need.

So those are the core

of our system.

But that’s just the beginning.

As now we can keep adding more

parameters and think about the

applications in which those

systems that uh has the most

in terms of improving ourselves

but also was very close to

our mission is looking.

And the cardiovascular health

and how to improve the heart

health with those tools.

Okay.

And you’re monitoring the

cardiovascular system

in real time.

So that’s a tremendous

amount of data.

So you had mentioned that you’re

processing all that data in the

cloud and then delivering

insights back through

a dashboard,

I think,

of the greater health monitoring

ecosystem,

which is becoming possible.

You can do a lot of different

things also temperature,

you can monitor vocalizations

for changes.

You can monitor your sounds

of respiration,

the character of a person’s,

cough, sleep quality,

all those things.

So did I understand you

correctly that you have all

the data in the cloud,

that you’re also making

an API available,

so your data can be part of a

broader health monitoring

ecosystem when these ecosystems

start to develop.

Is that correct?

That’s absolutely correct.

And that’s part of our

vision of opening those APIs

for the earbuds.

The earbud is for us,

the place where we can

get those data.

Especially there is more central

sensors being added to

the earbuds as well,

or hearing aids as well.

So we could fuse all of that

information in our cloud and

open the APIs so all the

applications could feed those

information and provide really

actionable solutions

for the customers.

And that’s part of our business

model and our vision to be

inside and providing accurate

information in real time.

And to that end,

is the system available in

a production earbud now?

Or to the extent that

you can tell me,

when would you expect people to

be able to buy an earbud with

the MindMics system in place?

Very excited to share that.

People who are interested,

you can go to mindmics.com.

We already have our earbuds

for presales and we.

Start the shipment in

the next few weeks.

So it’s exciting time for us.

This is only very limited

edition as our vision is not

to be the earbud company.

And there are so many great

earbud brands out there and

great earbud manufacturers

as well as hearing aid

manufacturers and brands.

We want to open those APIs.

We are experts in those

analytics and providing the

actionable insights.

But we have our limited edition

of Earbuds where the partners

can go and buy and try

it for themselves.

Okay,

so that’s the state of

the company today,

where you have your reference

design running the APIs

are available.

And now you’re working with

earbud companies to incorporate

the system in production

devices.

That is correct.

So it’s a very exciting

time for us,

as we will delivering very soon

not only our earbuds,

but also the full heart health

system with the dashboard and

those analytics and the

breathing exercises as. Well,

so you can see actually the

change and how we can change

your physiology in real time.

Well,

you’re really an exciting place

and I wish you success as

you bring it to market.

Before we wrap this up,

do you have any last thoughts

for the audience?

One of the aspects of MindMics

that is super exciting is that

when we think about our health,

we usually looking

at the symptoms.

And what makes us at MindMics

so exciting is that this system that

we’re building in the future can

be used as a predictive

health mindset.

This is the analogy I like to

use because we’re using the

vibrations in the factories to

actually looking at machines

before they break,

literally inducing vibrations to

see if all of the elements

are working properly.

We don’t wait until those

systems break.

And when you think about our

health, we kind of let it.

To go and it breaks.

So MindMics

our vision, mission for the future is

to build that looking at those

vibrations of the human body

and in the future,

being able to predict that

something can go wrong and

alert people on time,

when still small changes could

make a small, big difference.

That’s the future.

That’s our mission.

Step by step with the

right partners

Really looking forward

to deliver on that.

I love that analogy because

there’s so much going on in

acoustic IoT, as you said.

Machine monitoring. For example.

Acoustically monitoring a

machine that can detect when a

bearing has started to wear out

so you can do preventative

maintenance.

You’re doing the same thing

for the human body.

You’re acoustically monitoring

the human body and developing

insights and eventually being able

to predict outcomes and give

advice before something happens.

That’s really fascinating.

I really appreciate.

Explaining that to us today.

If people want to reach out to

you to learn more or engage with

MindMics, how would they do it?

Invite everyone to our website,

mindmics.com,

and contact us through

our website.

And also check out our blogs

where we are explaining how

mindmics technology works,

but also the power of the

breathing exercises of

the heart variability,

and a lot of different topics of

how we can take control of our

health to bring actionable tools

that we bring into market

as mindmics.

Okay, great. Thanks for that.

And thanks again for

joining us today.

And thanks to everyone watching

this episode of this

Week in Hearing.