December 5, 2024

Despair impacts roughly 280 million people all around the world, and disproportionately impacts the feminine inhabitants — it’s 50% extra frequent in girls than males. Remedies vary from psychotherapy and way of life changes to antidepressants and extra experimental ideas: mind stimulation therapies.

Sooma, a medtech startup based mostly in Helsinki, Finland, is concentrated on the latter. The corporate has developed a conveyable mind stimulation machine for Transcranial Direct Present Stimulation (tDCS).

Its neuromodulation machine is already probably the most prescribed tDCS remedy worldwide, with over 20,000 folks having acquired therapy. Sooma introduced at this time it has secured extra progress funding of €5mn to additional develop the product and develop in new and present markets.

What’s tDCS for melancholy? 

tDCS is a type of neuromodulation (the method of regulating nervous system exercise by controlling the physiological ranges of neurons) that makes use of a low electrical present to stimulate particular components of the mind.

So how precisely does carrying a swimming cap with electrodes alleviate melancholy signs? The delicate electrical currents administered by way of the cap can affect the exercise of particular mind cells, answerable for releasing neurotransmitters associated to temper. As well as, a 2023 examine published in Nature discovered that particular set-ups of tDCS generated extra gray matter, key part of the brain’s neural tissue, in areas of the mind related to lack of gray matter from melancholy.

The Sooma team of four people posing together