Individualized Brain Stimulation

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), or depression, is one of the most common psychiatric disorders and a leading cause of global mental and physical disability. Traditional treatments such as antidepressants and psychotherapy have been implemented worldwide to mitigate this issue. Recently, tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation), have emerged as a new promising depression treatment using non-invasive weak electrical current to the scalp. Partnering with PlatoScience with their PlatoWork headset for tDCS, team RTech and CodeCatalyst provide a new mobile application capable of recommending individualized brain stimulation protocol for users through extensive health data collection and reliable, published studies. At this stage, we have completed revision for 70+ papers regarding tDCS treatment in depression, provided 20+ protocols based on their effectiveness, and created a general ‘Plato Scale’ deriving from other popular depression severity scales such as PHQ-9 and BDI-II. A mobile application implementing these methodologies has also been built from scratch to replace PlatoApp from PlatoScience. In later stages, we hope to continue working to fully adapt the ecosystem of PlatoScience, incorporating direct Bluetooth control of their PlatoWork headset through our application with recommended protocols, leading to a more direct impact on how to treat depression.