Trend: A growing toolkit for brain training and brain enhancement

Can Elec­tric ‘Brain Train­ing’ Devices Make You Smarter? (For­tune):

“If there were a sys­tem or a prod­uct that could make you, say, 10% smarter, you’d buy it in a sec­ond, right? That’s been the promise of the “brain train­ing” field…

Now, faster than the cur­rent cours­ing through your cere­bel­lum, the field is bur­geon­ing into what could be called Brain Train­ing 2.0. The new gen­er­a­tion con­sists of devices that promise to mon­i­tor or stim­u­late your brain to make you calmer, more focused—perhaps even smarter. Priced from $79 to $595, these wear­able gadgets—with names like Mel­on, Emo­tiv Insight, Melo­mind, iFo­cus­Band, and Narbis—aim to gauge your cere­bral activ­i­ty using elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) and then redi­rect your focus. Oth­er com­pa­nies, such as Thync, Fish­er Wal­lace Lab­o­ra­to­ries, and Halo Neu­ro­science, use mild elec­tric puls­es that pur­port­ed­ly acti­vate cer­tain con­nec­tions in your brain.

The brain fit­ness mar­ket is expect­ed to grow to $6 bil­lion by 2020, accord­ing to Sharp­Brains, which tracks neu­ro­science trends…Top experts express reser­va­tions about today’s technology—but a belief that the field is real and head­ing in promis­ing directions.”

To learn more:

• Info­graph­ic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020
• 10 Neu­rotech­nolo­gies About to Trans­form Brain Enhance­ment and Brain Health
• Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy: A Ground­break­ing Analy­sis of 10,000+ Patent Fil­ings Trans­form­ing Med­i­cine, Health, Enter­tain­ment and Business