Brain-stimulation devices promise to make you a better you - but is there a risk?

Jamie Tyler was stressed. He had just endured a half-hour slog through airport security and needed some relief. Many travellers in this situation might have headed for the nearest bar or popped an aspirin. But Tyler grabbed a triangular piece of gadgetry from his bag and held it to his forehead.

As he closed his eyes, the device zapped him with low-voltage electrical currents. Within minutes, Tyler said, he was feeling serene enough to face the crowds once again.

This is no science fiction. The Harvard-trained neurobiologist was taking advantage of one of his own inventions, a device called Thync that promises to help users activate their body’s “natural state of energy or calm” - for a retail price of a mere US$199.

The obsession with wellness is fueling a new category of consumer electronics, one that goes far beyond ubiquitous Fitbits that only passively monitoring users’ physical activity. The latest wearable tech, to put it in the simplest terms, is about hacking your brain.

These gadgets claim to be able to make you have more willpower, think more creatively and even jump higher. One day, their makers say, the technology may even succeed in delivering on the holy grail of emotional enhancement: happiness.

There’s real, peer-reviewed science behind the theory driving these devices. It involves stimulating key regions of the brain with currents or magnetic fields to change emotions and physical well-being. It isn’t too different from how electroshock therapy works to counter certain mental illnesses and how deep-brain stimulation smooths motion disorders like multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. Indeed, recent studies have looked at the technique as a possible treatment for stroke, autism and anorexia.

Lots of people and companies are making investments, too, from Silicon Valley venture capitalists to large pharmaceutical companies and even the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. And according to the start-ups selling the products, their technology appears to be safe and effective, based on certain, very controlled tests.

But more rigorous research is ongoing, and some of the early results have generated controversy because of how the studies were conducted.