Direct-to-Consumer

Trend: Growing interest in (and questions around) brain training centers for kids with special needs

by

___

Par­ents pay thou­sands for ‘brain train­ing’ to help kids with ADHD and autism. But does it work? (NBC News):

“…As the num­ber of chil­dren diag­nosed with ADHD and autism surges in the U.S., accord­ing to fed­er­al data, and as par­ents become exas­per­at­ed with treat­ments that don’t work or involve med­ica­tions that car­ry the risk of side effects, neu­rotech­nol­o­gy indus­try ana­lysts pre­dict the demand for pro­grams like these will only grow [Read more…] about Trend: Grow­ing inter­est in (and ques­tions around) brain train­ing cen­ters for kids with spe­cial needs

Growing debate about the ethics and regulation of direct-to-consumer transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

by

___

Accord­ing to the adver­tis­ing hype, you too can enjoy incred­i­ble neur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits in the com­fort of your own home by using a sim­ple elec­tri­cal device that offers tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS). For instance, three dif­fer­ent mod­els of tDCS devices sold online claim to improve mood, increase cre­ativ­i­ty, enhance mem­o­ry, accel­er­ate learn­ing, and com­bat pain and depres­sion. For the low, low price of between $99 and $189.95, you get a com­pact hand­held device with easy-to-use con­trols and two elec­tri­cal leads that end in small sponges. These sponges are dipped into saline solu­tion to make them cur­rent-car­ry­ing elec­trodes, then placed against your head. The web­sites typ­i­cal­ly show the sponges locat­ed on either side of the fore­head, but point out that they need to be placed else­where on the skull to acti­vate dif­fer­ent parts of the brain, depend­ing on the desired outcome.

Wher­ev­er you place the sponges, when you switch on the unit, you’re pump­ing elec­tric cur­rent into your brain, although not very much.

[Read more…] about Grow­ing debate about the ethics and reg­u­la­tion of direct-to-con­sumer tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS)

Study: Few wearable neurotechnologies have been directly tested by high-quality, peer-reviewed research

by

_____

Wear­able brain devices sold with ques­tion­able claims (Com­put­er World):

“Wear­able ‘neu­rotech­nol­o­gy’ devices have in recent years hit the main­stream mar­ket; pitched to con­sumers as a way to improve mem­o­ry and atten­tion, boost brain fit­ness and con­trol games and objects with the pow­er of the mind.

An analy­sis of com­mer­cial­ly avail­able wear­able ‘neu­rode­vices’ pub­lished this week in jour­nal Neu­ron has cast doubt on whether their mak­ers can back up such claims. [Read more…] about Study: Few wear­able neu­rotech­nolo­gies have been direct­ly test­ed by high-qual­i­ty, peer-reviewed research

Regulating and helping shape the evolving phenomenon of Direct-to-Consumer Neuroscience

by

___

We’re proud to share that our CEO and Edi­tor-in-Chief Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a fas­ci­nat­ing and time­ly 2‑day meet­ing, host­ed by The Ban­bury Cen­ter at Cold Spring Har­bor Lab­o­ra­to­ry under the theme The evolv­ing phe­nom­e­non of Direct-to-Con­sumer Neu­ro­science, to help iden­ti­fy and address key open regulatory/ eth­i­cal issues relat­ed to the growth of per­va­sive neu­rotech­nolo­gies and dig­i­tal brain health plat­forms offered/ sold direct­ly to consumers.

The event is off-the-record so we won’t be able to blog about it, but here are some resources if inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the gen­er­al con­text for the event: [Read more…] about Reg­u­lat­ing and help­ing shape the evolv­ing phe­nom­e­non of Direct-to-Con­sumer Neuroscience