Direct-to-consumer neuroscience

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

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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

Important insights on the growing home use of tDCS brain stimulation: older-than-expected users, positive self-reported results for treatment of depression but negative for self-enhancement, and a couple areas of concern (severe burns, frequency)

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Dr. Brent Williams is wear­ing a home­made tDCS device while his wife Madge is sport­ing a com­mer­cial mod­el. Pho­to by Kevin Liles/kevindliles.com

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At the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit last month, researcher and sci­ence writer Dr. Anna Wexler dis­cussed some fas­ci­nat­ing insights from her sur­vey of 339 home (or “do-it-your­self”) users of tDCS (tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion) devices.

The sur­vey results have just been pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Cog­ni­tive Enhance­ment (details below), and pro­vide a use­ful win­dow into who pur­chas­es tDCS devices and why, how they use them and what results they see. [Read more…] about Impor­tant insights on the grow­ing home use of tDCS brain stim­u­la­tion: old­er-than-expect­ed users, pos­i­tive self-report­ed results for treat­ment of depres­sion but neg­a­tive for self-enhance­ment, and a cou­ple areas of con­cern (severe burns, frequency)