The Flow headset looks like a prop from a science-fiction movie. It's sleek and curvy, with two large circular pads that use electrodes to send a small electrical current into your brain.
Why would you want that to happen? Well, the company that makes the headset – and charges £400 (approx $520) for it – says it can help treat depression, with 77 per cent of users seeing an improvement in their symptoms in just three weeks.
My internal nonsense detector lit up when I first read that.
I’m cautiously hopeful about wearable devices and their potential to improve our health. But I’ve heard a lot of grand promises, many of which remain unfulfilled.
Flow is one of the first that could change my mind, as there’s real evidence that it can change minds.
In the last couple of years, a number of studies have looked at how people with depression respond to using the device. Admittedly, these studies were funded by Flow Neuroscience, but they were designed and carried out by external researchers and mental health practitioners.
The most recent trial was conducted by a team led from the University of East London, and involved 174 patients in the UK and the US. It was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised study – something close to a gold standard in research.
The team found that more than half of the people using the Flow headset (56 per cent) were symptom-free after 10 weeks.
“We’re talking about remission,” says consultant psychiatrist Alex O’Neill-Kerr. “That’s no symptoms at all, or very few.”
O’Neill-Kerr worked on an earlier trial using the headset with Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. He also prescribes it in his private practice.
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“I was absolutely gobsmacked when I first started using it,” he says. “We get people saying, ‘I’ve got my life back now’. I was talking to a patient today who was on a Flow device and it completely turned his life around.”
It’s important to note that not everyone benefits from using the headset and not every study into the technique has delivered such promising results. One conducted by German researchers in 2023 found that the technology was no better than a sham stimulation where no current was administered.
The basic principle behind the headset – transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) – is increasingly supported by research, however. The working theory behind tDCS is that sending a mild (and painless) electric current into the brain can stimulate areas that are less active in people with depression.
One explanation for why depression occurs is that communication between mood-regulating brain regions is disrupted. The electric current from tDCS may help these regions to connect better, O’Neill-Kerr says.
It’s potentially a game-changing development because roughly a third of people with depression never respond to antidepressant drugs or therapy. It could also lower the demand on the National Health Service (NHS).
“These patients tend to come to their doctor quite regularly because they’re experiencing symptoms that aren’t getting better,” O’Neill-Kerr says. “Now they’ve got something that potentially can work. And the ideal thing is that they do it from home."
The side effects noted with tDCS are also mild compared to many antidepressants. Some patients experience a tingling sensation near the electrodes. Others get headaches. But it’s not addictive or damaging.
The headset is easy to use and can work alongside more traditional treatments. Flow isn’t the only headset that uses tDCS to have a positive effect on the brain – the PlatoWork and BrainDriver headsets are said to do the same. But Flow is the only device currently used and backed by the NHS.
Research is also under way to work out whether tDCS could treat anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and non-mental health conditions, like tinnitus.
O’Neill-Kerr is hopeful that it could become a regular, maybe even a go-to, treatment for patients. “You’re getting the brain back to the way it should be,” he says.
About our experts
Prof Alex O'Neill-Kerr is a psychiatrist who specialises in OCD, PTSD, depression, bipolar, anxiety, transcranial magnetic stimulation and addiction therapies. His work has been published in BJPsych Open, Open Journal of Depression and Journal of Affective Disorders Reports.
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