Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal introduces the team behind Temple’s BrainFlow

Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal on Friday revealed the names of the four scientists behind his healthtech venture Temple's BrainFlow wearable system, which is designed to continuously measure blood flow to the brain.

The scientists are Dr Divya Gulati and Dr Sanchit Gupta from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Dr Yukti Chopra from SISSA Trieste in Italy, and Nitish Kumar from IIT Bombay.

The team successfully led, built, and validated what Goyal describes as the first continuous wearable measurement of blood flow to the brain.



What is BrainFlow technology?

Goyal, in his post on X, notes that BrainFlow technology aims to address a limitation in conventional blood flow measurement methods.

"Your brain uses 20% of your blood supply. It controls your hormones, sleep, immunity, and repair. That supply drops every year as you age, and you have never measured it. Even hospitals can only capture a single snapshot," Goyal says.

Tracking brain blood flow could be one of the most important health and longevity moves of our time, Goyal argues. Broadly, Temple aims to work on extending healthy human life.

Validating the technology

Addressing a question about whether BrainFlow measures blood flow in the brain or only in the scalp, Goyal posted a second validation study using time-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (TD-NIRS).

TD-NIRS distinguishes changes in blood volume in the brain from changes occurring in the scalp. The validation study compared Temple BrainFlow against TD-NIRS and involved 60 participants, the post says.

"We had 60 participants go through three physiological challenges: head-down tilt, stand-to-squat, stand-to-supine.

Across all three challenges, Temple BrainFlow found brain blood volume significantly more than scalp blood volume.

The study was guided by Temple's Scientific Advisor, Prof. David Boas, Director of Boston University's Neurophotonics Center, an expert in biomedical optical technologies in neuroscience, including NIRS.

While the study has been posted as a preprint and submitted for peer review, Goyal has encouraged researchers to replicate it. Temple would also be loaned to any qualified researcher who wishes to pressure-test any of its metrics independently, Goyal added.

Continuous brain blood flow monitoring could potentially provide researchers and clinicians with more data about changes in cerebral circulation over time. However, the broader health and longevity implications of this system depend on further research and experiments.

When is BrainFlow being launched?

Responding to an X user who asked when the tech would be commercially available, Goyal said, "We should most likely have a date for pre-orders next week. Waiting for certainty on a couple of open items."