Technology instead of Ritalin: Start-up wants to alleviate ADHD symptoms with a wearable

According to a 2020 survey, more than 366 million adults worldwide have ADHD. There are few treatment options for those affected other than prescription drugs such as Medikinet, commonly known as Ritalin. While behavioral therapies and certain lifestyle changes can help alleviate symptoms, the condition can make both more difficult.

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The Australian start-up Neurode will open up new treatment options with a wearable. A headband is designed to be able to record and treat ADHD symptoms, such as difficulty concentrating. Light is used to monitor brain activity; to alleviate the symptoms, the prefrontal cortex is stimulated with gentle electrical stimuli. According to the US online medium Techcrunch, some users feel a slight tickling sensation, others notice nothing at all.

Neurode founder Nathalie Gouailhardou has been diagnosed with ADHD since she was five years old. She told Techcrunch that medications never really helped her. In her case, side effects such as sleep disturbances and increased anxiety always outweighed the potential benefits.

The neuroscientist came up with the idea for the wearable while working with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) devices in a medical research laboratory. These non-invasive optical imaging neuroscience instruments are equipped with light sources and sensors and are placed on the head like a headband. Active parts of the brain require more oxygen, and blood flow increases there. The headband sends near-infrared light through the scalp and skull through the brain. The blood in the brain absorbs and scatters the light depending on the oxygen content. Sensors record the light that is scattered back, which allows conclusions to be drawn about brain activity. The devices are inexpensive, have no side effects, and can be used in real-life situations with a high degree of freedom of movement, which is why fNIRS is used, for example, in sports psychology research or in research on children, such as in studies on language acquisition.

Portable for home use

Gouailhardou wanted to take the technology out of the lab and use it to treat ADHD. She founded Neurode in 2021 with her friend and co-founder Damien Sofrevski. They filed a patent for the headband that same year. Since then, Neurode has raised $3.5 million in investor money, which the start-up is using for clinical trials. The device is currently being tested in a closed beta. Gouailhardou hopes that the device will receive FDA approval, but there is no timetable for the application yet.

An employee at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures told TechCrunch that his company invested in Neurode because ADHD treatment is ripe for innovation. Ritalin was developed during World War II. He also liked that the device was designed for home use. After all, the best scientific methods are useless if people can’t use them.

The idea of ​​using electrical stimulation of the brain instead of medication is not new. In Germany, for example, the “Noninvasive Brain Stimulation Lab” working group at the Neurology Clinic at the University Medical Center Göttingen is researching the development of methods for noninvasive brain stimulation. In an interview with heise online, the head of the working group, Andrea Antal, said that noninvasive brain stimulation has been used for years to improve the symptoms of people suffering from depression or pain. In her studies, 70 to 80 percent of patients show an improvement. She also believes the approach is potentially effective in alleviating ADHD symptoms.

Despite the minimal side effects, electrical stimulation is not currently used frequently. According to Antal, regulations complicate its use. In principle, these forms of therapy are private services. Only in inpatient treatment is magnetic brain stimulation covered by health insurance, but not electrical. One reason for this is the comparatively thin study base.

In the US, the FDA approved a device for home use in 2019 that is designed to reduce ADHD symptoms in children through gentle electrical stimulation of the trigeminal nerve.

(kst)