Textile-Based Functional Electrical Stimulation for Depression: Prototype Development and Proof of Concept Clinical Trial

Project Synopsis

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability and currently available treatments are often difficult to access, associated with significant sideeffects, and treatmentresistance. Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) involves a systematic and coordinated application of electrical current to excitable tissues, and the team led by Dr. Popovic has extensively researched FES for restoring motor and sensory function post stroke/spinalcord injury. More recently, his team has demonstrated repetitive FES of the facial muscles responsible for producing a Duchenne smile pattern as a potential treatment for MDD. This requires patients to come into the hospital (in person), a burden shared with all currently available neurostimulation treatments with demonstrated efficacy for MDD. There is a great need for takehome neurostimulation treatments which has been heightened in the COVID19 context.

Project Objective

Design and development of novel textilebased FES mask personalized to the individuals 3dimensional features. It also focuses on design and conduct of a proofofconcept clinical trial among 40 participants with mild moderate MDD working along with the clinical trials unit and biostatistics units.