About the innovator

Established in 2000 Starlab is an independent, private R&D SME. Starlab Barcelona develops innovative hardware concepts as well as software products and consulting services. The Neuroscience Business Unit has extensive experience in brain stimulation and electrophysiology, advanced data analysis, and basic/applied research services for both institutional and industrial clients.

The Starlab Neuroscience BU capability is based on a unique combination of expertise in different stages of the data analysis pipeline from signal acquisition through signal processing to the final application based on advanced artificial intelligence techniques. Our core applications target the characterization of emotion, theranostics of mental and neurological disease, and Digital Brain Health in general.

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What is the innovation

LUMINOUS aims to advance science on consciousness and to find applications for consciousness measurement and alteration leveraging non-invasive brain monitoring and stimulation technology. To achieve these goals, we model brain function in computers and conduct human studies – in healthy perception, sleep, anesthesia, full-conscious but completely paralyzed patients, coma patients, and in utero – supported by Artificial Intelligence to disentangle the essential aspects of consciousness. This paradigm-shifting work will have profound social and clinical impact and provide key insights in human and machine consciousness.
Luminous aims at creating a new class of consciousness technologies that bypass the use of sensory functions, through the simultaneous simplification and improvement of current measuring techniques. Moreover we work on novel electrical stimulation technology for therapeutic interventions. Among others these novel technologies will decrease misdiagnosis rates in coma patients, and improve anesthesia by personalizing dosage, therefore reducing side effects. This technological breakthrough is expected to boost personalized medicine and move from hospitals to home with the provision of Digital Brain Health services.

Out of the lab. Into the market

We will add new features to the current Starstim© device for brain monitoring and electrical stimulation, which is currently commercialized by our spin-off Neuroelectrics. These will lead to the implementation of a real-time close-loop technology that receives brain monitoring features to adapt the stimulation features in an automatic way. The system will improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with Disorders of Consciousness (coma), enable non-pharmacological therapies for sleep, improve communication in paralyzed patients, and empower anesthesiologists for more precise interventions.

We will launch novel technologies used in consciousness studies, release them for the treatment of related disorders (including sleep ones) and for anesthesia application, a new road for innovation in the field of brain health devices with a great potential for  market uptake.

Benefits of participation in Horizon 2020

Our experience in EU framework programmes started in 2009 with our project HIVE. We successfully addressed brain to brain communication in HIVE, a grand vision led by Starlab that brought us to develop ground-breaking brain stimulation technologies. HIVE became a technology transfer success story that consolidated through the creation of our spin-off Neuroelectrics for the commercialization of neurotechnology.

Again in Luminous we make use of the EU framework programme H2020 and, concretely, of the FET funding programme, a wonderful opportunity that enables us realizing our riskiest scientific and technological dreams, visions, and ambitions. We believe that the FET concept achieves the right balance between exploring and implementing in a bottom-up approach that successfully translates democracy into scientific and technology transfer praxis. The research framework programmes in the EU are one of the most successful stories in the development of the European Union. We congratulate the EU on further supporting R&D and innovation within H2020 and encourage its further development because of the aforementioned fundamental values. 

This innovation was funded via H2020 project LUMINOUS

Team behind the innovation

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