During a conversation on the Full Send Podcast, biohacker and entrepreneur Bryan Johnson revealed details about one of the most unusual and expensive pieces of technology he has ever built: a helmet designed to measure the biological age of your brain.
Johnson, who says he is the most measured person in human history, explained that the device came out of his work with his brain interface company. “We built it,” he said. “It took us over $75 million to build this.” He noted that he personally put in over $60 million of that himself.
When asked what the helmet actually does, Johnson kept the explanation straightforward. “You wear it for 7 minutes, you watch a little video, and it gives you a brain age score,” he said, describing it as a measure of your functional brain age.
The helmet was brought out during the conversation for the group to look at, and the reaction was immediate. “It just looks like a bike helmet,” one of the hosts said.
Beyond measuring age, Johnson explained the device has broader capabilities. “This can test you, for example, on your intelligence, on language, on reaction speed, on language fluency. So you can get scored on a whole bunch of different metrics on like how well is your brain and where you rank according to your age group.”
Johnson also described using the helmet during his live psilocybin experiment, which he said drew around a million concurrent viewers at one point. “I did one when I started, one at peak, and then one afterwards,” he said, referring to the helmet measurements taken during the session. He described watching thermal imaging of his face and body change during the experience. “You see the blood flow changes dramatically. So the body pushes all the blood to the core. So you get really hot in your chest and throat. Your face changes thermal patterns.”
He also used the helmet as part of a ketamine study. “We measured my brain 30 days before, during ketamine, and after ketamine,” he said, explaining that the study revealed something about how the d**g works. “When you do it, it opens up this therapeutic window where your brain is in these fixed patterns. You have these fixed thought processes.”
He compared the brain to a globe with airports, where ketamine scrambles the usual high-traffic routes between hubs, loosening fixed patterns. The helmet allowed his team to document this process in a way no study had done before.
On what his own brain age scores look like, Johnson said: “It depends on when I do it and what therapies I’m doing, but somewhere between like 32 and 45.” He added that he is always trying to drive the number lower.
When asked about the cost to manufacture each unit, Johnson put the figure at around $30,000 to $35,000 per helmet. He confirmed his team has more than one. “We have quite a few of them,” he said.
