The eyes are not just a window into the soul; Tracking saccades can help doctors detect a range of brain health problems. That’s why Franco-Belgian medical technology startup neuroClues is developing accessible, high-speed eye tracking technology that includes AI-driven analysis. She wants to make it easier for healthcare providers to use eye tracking to help diagnose neurodegenerative diseases.
The company is initially focusing on Parkinson’s disease, which usually involves testing a patient’s eye movements. Today, a doctor asks a patient to “follow my finger,” but neuroClues wants clinicians to instead use its proprietary, wearable headsets to capture eye movements at 800 frames per second, after which they can perform analysis of the data in just a few minutes seconds.
The co-founders of the 3.5-year-old group – both neuroscientists – point out that the high rate of misdiagnosis in Parkinson’s was one of the reasons for their decision to focus on the disease initially. But her Ambitions continue. They paint a picture of the future in which their device becomes a “stethoscope for the brain.” For example, imagine if your annual visit to the optometrist could include a quick assessment of your brain health and compare you to standard benchmarks for your age. According to the startup, which aims to help 10 million patients by 2023, eye tracking protocols could also help test for other diseases and conditions such as concussion, Alzheimer’s, MS and stroke.
How does the device work? Today, a patient looks through the headset and sees a screen with dots appearing on it. A doctor then asks them to follow the dots with their eyes. The device then extracts data that can be used as a biomarker for disease by recording and analyzing their eye movements, measuring things like latency and error rate. It also provides the clinician with the following a standard value expected from a healthy population for comparison with the patient’s results.
“The first scientific paper using eye tracking to diagnose patients dates back to 1905,” Antoine Pouppez, co-founder and CEO of neuroClues, said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, noting that the technique was originally used for diagnosis was used by schizophrenia. In the 1960s, when video eye trackers came onto the market, research into tracking technology boomed neurological disorders. But decades of research into the utility of eye tracking as a diagnostic technique have not led to widespread clinical use because the technology was not yet available and/or too expensive, Pouppez said.
“That’s where this technology comes from: the frustration of my co-founders when they saw that eye tracking has great value – that has been shown in research, clinically proven on thousands of patients in research institutions – and that it is still not being used “clinical practice,” he said. “Doctors today use their fingers—literally saying, ‘Follow my finger’—while one eye moves at 600 degrees per second. They make three eye movements per second. Therefore, it is very, very difficult – almost impossible – to judge how well you are moving [by human eye alone].”
Others have also recognized the potential to achieve more with eye tracking as a diagnostic aid.
US-based Neurosync, for example, offers a VR headset combined with FDA-approved eye tracking software that can reportedly analyze the wearer’s eye movements “to aid in the diagnosis of a concussion.” The product is aimed at football players and athletes in other contact sports who are at increased risk of head injury.
There are also mobile app makers—like BrainEye—that are alerting consumers to smartphone-based eye-tracking technology that allows them to self-test “brain health.” (Such claims are not reviewed by medical device regulators.)
But neuroClues stands out in many ways. First, it says the headset can be placed in a regular doctor’s office without the need for a darkroom or special computer hardware. It does not use off-the-shelf hardware, but instead develops specialized eye tracking headsets for vision testing that are designed to record at high speeds and control the recording environment. The company’s founders further argue that neuroClues enjoys developing its own software Unmatched speed of data collection in a commercial-grade, non-static device.
To protect these alleged advantages, neuroClues has issued (or filed) a number of patents that purport to cover various aspects of the design, such as the synchronization of hardware and software and the approach to data analysis The startup is also in the process of submitting an application for FDA approval and hopes to receive approval to use its device as a clinical support tool in the US later this year. It is working on the same type of application in the European Union and expects regulatory approval in the EU in 2025.
“We are the only one on the market today that records 800 frames per second on a portable device,” Pouppez said, noting that the “gold standard” of research is 1,000 frames per second. “There is no clinical or non-clinical product that can do this at this frame rate, which meant we had to overcome hurdles that no one had ever overcome before.”
Photo credit: neuroClues
neuroClues, founded at the Paris Brain Institute, expects the first eye-tracking headsets to be used in specialized settings such as university hospitals, i.e. for use on patients who have already been referred to specialists. It should be noted that the service may be reimbursed through existing health insurance arrangements as eye tracking tests are an established medical procedure. The company says it is also talking to a number of other companies in the US and Europe that are interested in its hardware and software.
This first version of the device is designed as a diagnostic aid, meaning a human doctor is still responsible for interpreting the results. But Pouppez said the team’s goal is to further develop the technology to also enable interpretations of the data so the device can be used more broadly.
“Our goal is to move quickly to bring these diagnostic capabilities to physicians,” he told us. “We hope to come onto the market with such a device in 26/27. And so to expand our market perspectives and really be there [the toolbox of] Every neurologist in the US and Europe.”
The startup announces the closure of a €5 million Series A pre-financing round led by the White Fund and the European Commission’s EIC Accelerator program. Also involved were existing investors Invest.BW as well as a number of business angels, including Fiona du Monceau, former CEO of UCB, Artwall, and Olivier Legrain, CEO of IBA. Including this round, neuroClues has raised a total of €12 million since its founding in 2020.
Pouppez said they would look to raise a Series A in the next 12 to 18 months. “Our existing investors and the European Commission have already shown interest in participating, so I am fundamentally looking for a lead investor,” he added.