Brain hacking emerges as latest trend in wearable tech, but is it ready for prime time?

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Brain-zap­ping gad­gets promise to make you a bet­ter you — smarter, stronger, even hap­pi­er (The Wash­ing­ton Post):

“Amer­i­cans’ obses­sion with well­ness is fuel­ing a new cat­e­go­ry of con­sumer elec­tron­ics, one that goes far beyond the ubiq­ui­tous Fit­bits and UP activ­i­ty wrist­bands that only pas­sive­ly mon­i­tor users’ phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. The lat­est wear­able tech, to put it in the sim­plest terms, is about hack­ing your brain.

These gad­gets claim to be able to make you have more willpow­er, think more cre­ative­ly and even jump higher…Lots of peo­ple and com­pa­nies are mak­ing invest­ments, too, from Sil­i­con Val­ley ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists to large phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and even the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The com­pa­nies claim the stim­uli they uti­lize are so weak that the prod­ucts should­n’t be con­sid­ered med­ical devices and sub­ject to reg­u­la­tion by the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion. To date, the agency has­n’t intervened.

All this has unnerved many neu­ro­science experts, who wor­ry about putting some­thing that tin­kers with the brain in the hands of naive con­sumer masses…Response from users has been mixed, with about two-thirds of online review­ers writ­ing about how hap­py they were with the prod­uct and about one-third say­ing they didn’t feel any effects at all.”

To learn more:

• Pros and Cons of lat­est wear­able tech trend: Mood-alter­ing elec­tri­cal brain stimulation
• Tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) as depres­sion treat­ment: much promise, some DIY risks
• Info­graph­ic & mar­ket report: Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­ogy: A Ground­break­ing Analy­sis of 10,000+ Patent Fil­ings Trans­form­ing Med­i­cine, Health, Enter­tain­ment and Business
• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging