Firefly Neuroscience announced the identification of a novel electrophysiological biomarker for post-traumatic stress disorder using brain scans collected on its FDA-510(k)-cleared Evoke System. The discovery comes weeks after Firefly confirmed an active public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of War to support assessment and treatment of active-duty service members and veterans suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
PTSD affects approximately 13 million Americans annually, with about 6% of the U.S. population experiencing it at some point in their life. The condition is disproportionately prevalent in military personnel, with 11-20% of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom veterans experiencing PTSD annually. The total U.S. economic burden of PTSD has been estimated at $232.2 billion, of which $42.7 billion is attributed directly to the military population.
The biomarker discovery leverages Firefly’s deep learning architecture running on NVIDIA L40S GPU-accelerated infrastructure, enabling analysis of multi-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) and Event-Related Potential waveforms at unprecedented scale. The Evoke System’s dual-signal approach captures both resting-state hyperarousal patterns and abnormal cognitive responses, which researchers describe as “particularly well-suited to PTSD diagnostics.” According to Firefly’s Chief Technology Officer Gil Issachar, the company applied its AI models to “a dataset that we believe to be unmatched in scale” to identify “a consistent and reproducible electrophysiological pattern distinguishing PTSD patients from healthy controls.”
The discovery potentially opens three commercial pathways: deepening the existing partnership with the Department of War where objective neural markers could expand government engagement; enabling pharmaceutical clinical trials to use the biomarker as an objective efficacy endpoint; and supporting more personalized clinical treatment decisions for civilians living with PTSD. Firefly’s proprietary database now consists of over 200,000 EEG/ERP brain scans, making it the world’s largest known standardized repository.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/06/02/3305043/0/en/Firefly-s-AI-Driven-Evoke-System-Powers-Discovery-of-Novel-Electrophysiological-Biomarker-for-PTSD.html