Brain stimulation with wearable consumer or medical devices offers a wide range of possible helpful effects. We’ve looked at Thync Relax to alter moods, research at the University of Washington using direct brain stimulation to help people with spinal cord injury or prosthetic limbs learn to control motion, experiments by the 711 Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to help combatants increase information throughput capacity, and Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies‘ Kinesia program using deep brain stimulation to help Parkinson’s disease patients.
Fisher Wallace‘s Fisher Wallace Stimulator is an FDA-cleared medical device that uses proprietary waveforms to increase the brain’s production of serotonin and other neurochemicals to treat symptoms of anxiety, depression, and insomnia. The device has also been used with patients with PTSD. The Fisher Wallace Stimulator consists of a handheld control device connected by two wires to pads held in place on the forehead by a headband. Users select a stimulation level on the control device and just relax or read for a daily 20-minute session. A study at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease showed the Fisher Wallace Stimulator to be a “safe and effective treatment” for Bipolar II Depression.
Patients in the U.S. need a prescription to purchase the Fisher Wallace Stimulator, which is cleared for home use. This wearable health tech device isn’t new, but its success and use in medical settings and research studies indicate potential additional applications for brain stimulation devices.
