Japanese start-up wants to make pain transferable between people
An EEG system is intended to make individual pain perception measurable on the basis of brain activity and transferable between people.
Analysing brain activity should make pain measurable and shareable.
(Image: PaMeLa Inc.)
The Japanese telecommunications company NTT Docomo and the start-up Pain Measurement Laboratory (“PaMeLa” for short) have presented a technology that should make it possible to digitally measure the subjective sensation of pain and pass it on to others. Docomo's so-called “human-augmentation platform” records brain activities in response to pain stimuli, visualizes and interprets them, and simulates them for recipients. According to the company, this is the world's first system that can reproduce pain sensations in an individually calibrated way—adapted to the personal sensitivity of the recipient.
Pain as a signal
The system consists of three components: a non-invasive EEG sensor device for recording brain waves, a cloud system for analyzing and converting the data based on individual pain thresholds, and a haptic actuator that triggers physical stimuli. The aim is to bring the subjective sensation into a comparable form—for example, to answer questions about how severe a certain pain level actually is for different people.
According to Docomo and PaMeLa, the technology will be used in medical diagnostics and rehabilitation, as well as in XR and gaming environments. Its use in the field of psychological stress, for example, to visualize social stress or verbal abuse, is also mentioned as a possible scenario.
Technically ambitious, scientifically unconfirmed
Despite the media announcement, key questions remain unanswered. A reliable, objective measurement of pain has not yet been medically established—unlike temperature or pulse. Pain is considered to be subjective, situational, and strongly characterized by psychological factors. Although EEG signals can provide indications of pain processing in the brain, they are not considered a clear indicator. It is also unclear how precisely the system can distinguish between different types of pain, such as pressure, heat, or tingling.
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Docomo and PaMeLa have not yet published any peer-reviewed studies or publicly available technical details on their development. Whether the system actually works as described therefore still needs to be scientifically tested. In mid-October, the two companies will present their project at the Japanese technology trade fair CEATEC 2025 in Chiba.
(joe)
