Auditory
A song returning unasked
A melody, often one with a long personal history, replays itself inside the head without being summoned. Some wearers describe it as the radio of another room. The first few seconds of this return are the aura.
§02 · Research axis · Epilepsy (temporal lobe only)
Some of us feel the seizure arrive
as a song we did not ask for.
We are learning to hear what the cortex hears.
This study concerns temporal-lobe epilepsy only. The starting observation is a clinical anecdote, uncommon but stubborn: that a subset of people with TLE feel the aura arrive as a memory that was not called, often a song returning unbidden, sometimes a room remembered too vividly, and, by a small act of attention, keep the seizure from unfolding. Standard neurology considers this not reliably possible. We suspect the phenomenon leaves a patient-specific cortical signature, short-lived but legible, and that an EEG cap plus a small model trained on one wearer can learn to see it, even for a wearer who cannot yet feel the aura on their own.
Scopetemporal lobe · only
Pilot wearer01 · founder, self
Pre-ictal windowseconds to a minute
An aura that arrives as a memory
nobody called.
Mnemonic
A room remembered too vividly
An old place, a face, a scene, arrives in full colour and with a feeling of 'I am about to fall into it'. For the wearer, this is a warning rather than a nostalgia.
Sensory
A taste or smell that is not there
A single sensory fragment, recognised by the wearer as an uncalled-for memory rather than a present perception. In TLE this is often the earliest visible sign.
What the cap is watching for.
Fp1 · frontalreference
F7 · frontalreference
T7 · temporal-Lwatched
T8 · temporal-Rreference
P7 · parietal-Lwatched
O1 · occipitalreference
O2 · occipitalreference
C3 · centralreference
Focustemporal · left & right
Modelper-wearer · local
Cuebone-conduction whisper
Handoffnever the cloud
The cap is only trying to see
what a self-aware cortex
already sees.
01Instrument
Dry-electrode cap
32 channels, conductive polymer electrodes, comfortable enough to be worn for a twelve-hour sleep–wake cycle. All processing happens on a companion device the size of a matchbook.
02Training
On the wearer, for the wearer
A week of unremarkable EEG is enough to learn the cortical idiolect of one person. The model is a small recurrent network with a phase-aware front-end.
03Signal
Phase-locking & drift
We look for coherence changes between temporal-lobe electrodes and their partners: a quiet, sustained shift that is too slow to be a muscle artifact and too structured to be noise.
04Cue
A whisper, not a siren
The wearer receives a bone-conduction cue. It does not interrupt. It is a reminder to engage whatever attention technique the wearer has, or is learning, to keep the seizure from unfolding. If there is no technique yet, the cue is also a chance to simply sit down.
05Consent
Opt-in to everything
Data lives on the wearer's device. Sharing with researchers is per-episode and revocable. We don't build central archives of anyone's cortex.
06Failure
We count the silences
A missed seizure is a more important datum than a correct one. Every unannounced event is reviewed by the wearer, not by us, and only with permission becomes part of the study.
Open questions. Please break these.
Q·01Can we distinguish a pre-ictal drift from a drowsy drift, reliably, in the wild?Write in →
Q·02What is the minimum week of baseline EEG below which the personal model becomes unsafe to deploy?Write in →
Q·03Is there a bone-conduction alarm timbre that does not become itself a trigger?Write in →
Q·04How should we report failures to a wearer who has not had a seizure in thirty-four days?Write in →
Q·05Can the attention technique that some wearers already use be described precisely enough to teach, and can it be learned by a wearer who does not yet have it?Write in →
Ethics. Consent is the protocol.
E·01
Informed, revocable consent
The study is explained in plain language before anything is worn. Consent is per-session and may be withdrawn at any moment. Withdrawal entitles the wearer to immediate erasure of device-held data.
E·02
Data stays on the device
EEG recordings do not leave the wearer's companion device by default. Any sharing with the research team is opt-in per-episode, cryptographically signed by the wearer, and revocable after the fact.
E·03
This is not a medical device
The system is an experimental research tool. It does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. Wearers retain their neurologist as the sole clinical decision-maker, at all times.
E·04
Emergency protocol
If the wearer authorises it, a pre-arranged emergency contact is notified when an unattended seizure is detected and the wearer is unresponsive for thirty seconds. The wearer configures, changes or disables this at will.
E·05
Independent ethics review
Protocols are reviewed by an independent ethics panel before any wearer is enrolled. Review documents, dissent and conditions imposed by the panel are available on written request.
E·06
Right to leave
A wearer may leave the study at any time, without giving a reason, and with the right to have their data erased. Leaving is not an event to justify. It is simply the end of a consent.
Review boardindependent · external
Data residencywearer's device
Regulatory statusresearch · non-clinical
Withdrawal latencyimmediate · no delay