Tuning the Brain Like a Radio: Synapse Symphony’s Plan to Treat Chronic Pain at Home

Key takeaways

• Synapse Symphony was incorporated in 2024. Its technology comes from around a decade of research, much of it funded by DARPA at Carnegie Mellon.

• The headset targets central sensitization, where the brain keeps sending pain signals after the body has healed.

• A patented algorithm personalizes the stimulation for each patient from their motor response and keeps adapting it over time, so the system can be used at home under clinical supervision.

• The company has raised about $500,000 in grants and awards, has just begun raising its first equity round, and is preparing to approach the FDA.

Synapse Symphony at a glance

About one in four U.S. adults lives with chronic pain, according to CDC figures for 2023, and 8.5% have pain that often limits work or daily life. Most are treated with drugs and physical therapy, and some end up in surgery. Jain describes a familiar pattern: doses creep up, opioids become a risk, and the operating room becomes the last option.

Synapse Symphony wants to offer something in between. The Pittsburgh company is building a noninvasive brain-stimulation system for eventual use at home under clinical supervision, based on research from Carnegie Mellon University. Jain, who is also a research scientist at CMU, leads the company alongside a multidisciplinary team. CMU professor Pulkit Grover leads the scientific development, and UPMC pain specialist Dr. Benedict Alter leads the clinical work. The company’s initial focus is fibromyalgia.

Synapse Symphony’s path from DARPA-funded research to a startup preparing for FDA review.

The interview

1. From a DARPA lab to a startup

Prof. Grover had been working on precise, noninvasive brain stimulation for years when DARPA’s N3 program (Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology) funded his CMU team in 2019. The award was about $19.5 million for a team that also included the University of Pittsburgh and Battelle. The program ran for five to six years.

Once the technology had been validated, the team looked for a civilian use and settled on chronic pain. Jain took an Innovation Commercialization Fellowship in 2022 to learn the business side, and the company was incorporated in 2024. DARPA backed the move, nominating the team for its Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative, which provided $315,000 in 2025.

“We started as scientists, but building a startup has challenged us to develop a business mindset and learn how to translate our research into a product that can reach patients.”

— Vishal Jain, PhD, Co-founder and COO, Synapse Symphony

2. Why target the brain?

Existing noninvasive methods such as tDCS and tACS spread current across a wide area. Jain says they “can prime the brain” but may not produce the direct brain response the team is after. Synapse Symphony uses high-density, pulsed stimulation to target a brain region precisely. Magnetic stimulation (TMS) is another option, but it needs bulky equipment and a clinic visit.

The medical basis is central sensitization. During a long recovery from injury, the brain strengthens the connections that carry pain. In some patients those connections stay active after the body has healed, leaving a dull, constant pain. The headset stimulates the brain’s pain centers to calm that activity.

“The brain works through firing and wiring. Even while we are talking now, the brain is creating memories and new connections.”

— Vishal Jain, PhD, Co-founder and COO, Synapse Symphony

3. The device and a session at home

The company builds its own hardware and software. The MVP-stage prototype in use today runs on a stack of laboratory stimulators. The next step is a compact, integrated prototype with a simple touchscreen, followed by an app-controlled system for eventual use at home under clinical supervision.

Many stimulation devices use the same preset settings for everyone. Synapse Symphony adjusts timing, frequency and power for each person, based on the patient’s motor response. The settings also have to be recalibrated over time, because the brain’s response changes.

“Think of it like tuning a radio. Getting a clearer signal is not simply about turning up the volume — it is about finding the right frequency and settings. Similarly, we personalize the pattern, timing, and intensity of stimulation for each patient rather than just increasing the power.”

— Vishal Jain, PhD, Co-founder and COO, Synapse Symphony

The vision is that a patient visits a clinic once for setup. At home, the system sends a short test pulse before each session and checks the response. If the response has drifted, the adaptive algorithm finds new settings, then runs a session of about 30 minutes. The patient only puts on the cap and enters a pain score from 0 to 10. The clinician sees the data remotely, so weekly calibration visits are not needed. Jain’s goal is 24 to 48 hours of relief from each session.

The self-calibrating session loop Jain described.

4. Making stimulation tolerable

Current passing through the scalp can hurt, and that discomfort often limits how much a clinician can deliver, even when a higher level would stay within safety limits. The team’s answer is a technique it calls Background Hum: a mild secondary stimulation, delivered with a specific electrode layout, that reduces the patient’s local discomfort at the scalp.

The method is described in a paper by Mats Forssell and colleagues, published in the journal Brain Stimulation in January 2026. In seven healthy volunteers, it cut scalp pain by about 2 points on a 10-point scale. Two fibromyalgia patients stayed below 3/10 over more than 1,000 pulses.

The hardware has also become easier to wear. Early study participants had to shave their heads so a flat electrode patch could touch the scalp. Jain says chronic-pain patients agreed without hesitation: “Yes, I can do anything. Just take away my pain.” The first prototype will use dry, spike-style electrodes that reach the scalp through hair, with no gel or preparation.

5. Early results

After studies in mice, monkeys and healthy volunteers, the device is now being tested with fibromyalgia patients, and osteoarthritis studies are under way with Dr. Alter at UPMC. Jain calls the early results “very encouraging.” Their first patient used to spend half an hour in bed each morning rubbing her legs before she could stand. After several sessions, she got up right away and walked downstairs without pain. Jain recalled her words:

“I used to cry to get out of bed because of my pain. After these sessions, yesterday I was able to get out of bed immediately and walk down the steps like a normal person.”

— First study participant, as recounted by Vishal Jain

The team does not promise participants a cure, to avoid biasing the results. “We tell them honestly: it may work, or it may not,” Jain said. These are individual reports from studies that are still running.

6. Funding and the FDA

All of the roughly $500,000 raised so far is non-dilutive, from grants and competition awards. The company has not raised equity financing. Amounts not given in the interview come from the company’s website.

Now company is openning its first investment round. That money would turn the current MVP into a full prototype for hospitals and pay for regulatory work. Synapse Symphony plans an FDA Q-Submission to learn how the device will be classified.

7. A second application: motor-health monitoring

Near the end of the interview, Jain described another potential application. Motor recovery after a stroke is usually assessed through functional tasks, such as watching a patient grip or lift an object. Synapse Symphony’s system can instead stimulate the brain’s motor region and measure the muscle response, showing whether the brain-to-muscle pathway is healthy, slow or improving. The same approach could help athletes track muscle health.

“These applications are at different stages of development. Our pain studies are ongoing and will require further clinical validation, while motor-response measurements offer an objective physiological signal that we are exploring for rehabilitation and performance monitoring.”

— Vishal Jain, PhD, Co-founder and COO, Synapse Symphony

8. The team

The core team has five people: Jain (chief operating officer), Pulkit Grover (acting chief executive and chief science officer), Dr. Benedict Alter (clinical advisor), neurostimulation expert Mats Forssell and embedded entrepreneur Jasmine Kwasa, along with other business and scientific advisers.

RobotToday analysis

Synapse Symphony’s main advantage is the feedback loop. The system measures the body’s response, adjusts, and only then treats. That is what is meant to make home use under clinical supervision possible, and it gives doctors a measurable signal alongside patients’ own pain scores. Robotics readers will recognize the approach: sensing, feedback and control, applied to the nervous system.

The company is also early. The pain results so far are individual reports from studies that are still running, the published Background Hum study is small, and FDA review, controlled trials and insurance coverage all lie ahead. The motor-health work rests on physiological measurements the team has already made in human participants, and a monitoring tool may face a lighter regulatory path than a treatment, so that side could move faster even while chronic pain remains the clinical priority.