Episode 8 – Yotam Drechsler

“You Can’t Worship AI”: Building Brain Recovery Tech That Puts Patients First

One in four people over 65 will have a stroke. Most will survive, but survival doesn’t mean recovery. While we’ve built data centers in space, stroke patients are still treated with 19th-century physical therapy.

In this episode of Machine Dreams, we sit down with Yotam Drechsler, CEO of BrainQ, who’s building what he calls “NVIDIA for brain recovery.” His AI-powered platform retrains neural networks damaged by stroke, helping patients recover at home through personalized electromagnetic fields and telemedicine.

Yotam explains why AI started in neuroscience but left the brain behind, why the first weeks after stroke matter so much, and what “responsible AI” actually means when patients are elderly, fragile, and trying to regain the ability to button their own shirt. We push back on the fear of AI replacing doctors and ask how you balance innovation with patient safety when families must trust an algorithm with their most precious asset.

This is AI beyond the demo—where the stakes are personal, timelines span decades of R&D, and getting it wrong means more than a bad user review.

 

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