Masaki Nakada

One of the major challenges for modern people that typically have a lot of stress in their lives is maintaining their mental health. While it is widely known that exercising promotes physical health and substantially improves mental health, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to stay home, making it difficult to go to the gym.

Amid this adversity, Masaki Nakada, the founder and CEO of the U.S. startup company NeuralX, was motivated to "use his own technology to provide services that help people" and rolled out an online fitness service based on kinematic analysis and biomechanical human motion simulation technologies.

Nakada said that "many people close to me have suffered from mental illnesses, and that triggered me to do what I can to help such people," leading him to take an interest in neuroscience and cognitive science. After completing his master's course at Waseda University, he continued his research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for 10 years and acquired a patent. Then, with the goal of contributing to the healthcare challenges that he had tackled all his life, he set up NeuralX in Los Angeles.

Nakada's research involves a computer model of the human musculoskeletal system which simulates how a human operates, including their brain, vision, muscle, and skeletal movements. NeuralX’s service uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to conduct motion analysis and automatically calculate the required exercise frequency, type, pace, and calorie consumption. This is then combined with human instructors to provide live fitness classes to users. The characteristic feature of this service is that it is able to provide suitable feedback to the user at the appropriate timing using the eclectic mix of AI and humans.

"In the future, I would like to use my motion analysis technology to expand the service from general fitness into physical therapies and sports. Additionally, I want to help people achieve a happier life both through technology and our service offerings in various other markets that require motion and behavioral analysis", remarks Nakada.