Next: Dealing with opportunities and challenges from mood-altering consumer wearables

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CES: what would blow your mind — brain-zap­ping head­set or smart ket­tle? (Finan­cial Times):

“A three-year-old start-up called Thync want­ed to strap a pro­to­type of its brain-zap­ping head­set to my tem­ples, with the inten­tion of alter­ing my mood. As wear­able devices go, it sound­ed a refresh­ing change from anoth­er jumped-up pedometer…

Thync’s pitch is that it can “merge tech­nol­o­gy with biol­o­gy”, and stim­u­late spe­cif­ic neur­al path­ways to affect mood. As well as a calm­ing zap, it offers a caf­feine-lev­el hit of ener­gy, which I did not try. The com­pa­ny says the head­set can be safe­ly used sev­er­al times a day, and has con­duct­ed tri­als on 3,000 peo­ple over 18 months. It is work­ing with the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion to ensure its safety.”

Learn more:

• Start-up Thync rais­es $13 mil­lion to mar­ket tran­scra­nial stim­u­la­tion via con­sumer wearable
• Tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) as depres­sion treat­ment: much promise, some DIY risks