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Depression, anxiety and sleep disorders can all be tackled by stimulating the brain's neurons

In recent years, we have seen the launch of products from companies such as Thync, Foc.us and my own Neurovalens, that use neurotechnology to relieve stress and anxiety, help weight-loss, improve sleep and boost learning. In 2019, neurostimulation will go mainstream.

Neurostimulation involves using low currents to stimulate neurons in the brain, either directly or via nerves outside the brain. Khosla Ventures-funde startup Thync has created a wearable (a small plastic device sitting near the right temple) targets the specific neural pathways involved in a number of important disease processes, including inflammatory diseases. The company has seen striking pilot results in a trial involving psoriasis and is pursuing clinical studies that, if successful, will lead to treatments for tens of millions of patients that suffer from inflammatory disorders and skin conditions.

UK-based Foc.us’s technology was initially target at enhancing gamers’ performance, but has since branched out to claims it improves learning. It uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to “push” a current, top-down, through the skull. Its approach draws on studies carried out in 2010 by Darpa, the US military’s research agency, which tested tDCS on soldiers in New Mexico.

The research involved applying electrodes to the scalps of volunteers, and then stimulating them while they played a battle-simulation video game designed to teach soldiers to react properly in stressful conditions. One group were exposed to a current of two milliamps while they played, the other to 0.1. The volunteers receiving the larger amount showed twice as much improvement as those that did not.

Neurovalens has created Modius, a weight-loss headset and app that stimulates the vestibular nerve, located directly behind the ear. The device draws on research that Nasa did in the 1970s, but which was only fully understood in 2002, when researchers at the University of California, Davis and the University of Missouri showed that stimulation of the neurovestibular system had a definable impact on appetite and body-mass regulation. Neurovalens has been testing this device since autumn 2017 and, so far, 3,000 users have on average lost about 4kg in a period of about two months.

Early pilots across a number of brands have also eliminated safety concerns and in 2019 we will see more and more brands emerging that use neurostimulation technology to tackle issues which the pharma industry has struggled to find solutions to. These include sleep, anxiety and depression, all of which have clear neurological roots and can therefore be impacted through use of the right stimulation at the right point for the right length of time.

Add to this the fact that device prices are falling rapidly, and 2019 will be the year when we will be stimulating the brain to achieve results that have thus far have eluded us.