Science & Explainers

Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is one of the best-validated technology-assisted treatments in mental health. Systems like BraveMind, developed at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, have helped combat veterans confront traumatic memories inside carefully reconstructed virtual environments for over a decade. But every one of these systems shares the same constraint: someone had to build … Read more

Imagine a therapy session where a patient describes a difficult memory out loud — a crowded street, a hospital corridor, a stretch of highway at dusk — and the scene takes shape around them in a VR headset, in real time, as they speak. Not a pre-built simulation chosen from a menu, but an environment … Read more

Every few months a video goes viral: someone moves a cursor, plays chess, or sends a text using nothing but their thoughts. The clips are real and the technology behind them is genuinely remarkable. But there’s a detail the headlines tend to bury — most of those demos involve brain surgery. The kind of brain-computer … Read more

The pitch is irresistible: put on a headband, watch your own brainwaves on a screen, and gradually train your brain toward calmer, sharper, more focused states — no drugs, no side effects. Neurofeedback has been around for half a century, and a new wave of consumer EEG devices has brought it from the clinic to … Read more

Brain stimulation used to mean a clinic, a referral, and a machine the size of a microwave. That’s changing fast. In December 2025 the U.S. FDA approved the first prescription transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) device you can use at home for depression — a genuine milestone for a technology that has spent two decades … Read more