Magnetic Tides
Magnetic Tides is a team of UC Berkeley neuroscientists, physicists, and engineers with a 2019 patent for an innovative non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) device. The device induces an electric field (E-field) in the brain, modulating brain function. Magnetic Tides was founded to commercially develop its patent for medical and research applications. NIBS has become a "hot new" tool in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Despite this rising interest, the two established NIBS technologies have fundamental limitations that impact reliability and leave them vulnerable to innovative disruption in the marketplace. Transcranial electric stimulation (tES) is only safe at low E-field and lacks spatial focality. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) lacks frequency specificity.
The company's new NIBS system, kTMP, combines the best features of the existing methods while overcoming their technical limitations. Generating a powerful, frequency-specific E-field, kTMP has the unique potential to restore brain functions disrupted in neurological and psychiatric conditions. The prototype kTMP device is built and has been approved as a Non-Significant Risk device by the UC Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects, and the company has promising test results from healthy volunteers.
Key milestones on Magnetic Tides' three-year research and development roadmap:
- Confirm efficacy on healthy volunteers
- Prove efficacy in a clinical setting
- Complete development of a second-generation device
