We did not invent the brain. These are the landmark findings — on attention, the aperiodic signal, deep sleep, and the measurable biology of belief — that the technology is designed around.
Ear-EEG Devices for the Assessment of Brain Activity: A Review
Juez, Moumane, Nassar, Molina-Salcedo, Segura-Quijano, Valderrama & Le Van Quyen · IEEE Sensors Journal, 2024
A systematic review of 96 peer-reviewed ear-EEG studies since 2011, across sleep, epilepsy, brain-computer interfaces, and more. The evidence that ear-EEG is an established field — and that the ear, beneath the temporal lobe and wired to the vagus nerve, is privileged real estate for reading the brain.
From Scalp to Ear-EEG: A Generalisable Transfer Learning Model for Automatic Sleep Scoring in Older People
Hammour, Davies, Atzori, della Monica, Ravindran, Revell, Dijk & Mandic · IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, 2024
A sleep-scoring model trained only on scalp EEG, applied to a single in-ear sensor in older adults, scored sleep at 70.1% out of the box and 73.7% after light fine-tuning — with the biggest gains on deep (N3) sleep. Evidence that decades of scalp knowledge transfer to the ear.
Preparatory encoding of the fine scale of human spatial attention
Voytek, Samaha, Rolle, Greenberg, Gill, Porat, Kader, Rahman, Malzyner & Gazzaley · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2017
Preparatory alpha (8–12 Hz) activity encoded where attention was directed and predicted accuracy and reaction time nearly a full second before a target appeared. Alpha is the brain aiming attention — not merely the frequency of calm.
Behavioral and cognitive correlates of the aperiodic (1/f-like) exponent of the EEG power spectrum
Ostlund, Alperin, Drew & Karalunas · Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2021
The popular theta/beta ratio is confounded by the brain’s aperiodic (1/f) background. The real signal is the aperiodic exponent, which tracks excitation/inhibition balance — a reminder that honest measurement means separating signal from background.
Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Kaptchuk, Friedlander, Kelley, Sanchez, Kokkotou, Singer, Kowalczykowski, Miller, Kirsch & Lembo · PLoS ONE, 2010
Patients openly told they were taking inert placebo pills still improved significantly more than untreated controls. Expectation produces real change — which is exactly why self-report alone cannot tell genuine effects from belief.
Justice for Placebo: Placebo Effect in Clinical Trials and Everyday Practice
Knezevic, Sic, Worobey & Knezevic · Medicines, 2025
A review of the neurobiology of placebo: dopamine, endogenous opioids, and endocannabinoids, visible on PET and fMRI, with effects reaching objective markers like inflammation. Belief leaves measurable traces — so measurement is the honest referee.
Acoustic Enhancement of Sleep Slow Oscillations
Papalambros et al. · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2017
Pink-noise pulses timed to the slow-wave upstate increased slow-wave activity and memory — the closed-loop principle behind reading the brain in real time and responding within the sleeping rhythm.
Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain
Xie et al. · Science, 2013
During deep sleep, the brain’s glymphatic system accelerates clearance of metabolic waste, including amyloid beta. The reason deep, slow-wave sleep is worth measuring — and protecting.