At-Home Brain Stimulation for Depression with Balder Onarheim

In this episode of The Open Loop, Chay Carter is joined by Balder Onarheim, Founder and CEO of PlatoScience. Balder shares his journey from the Norwegian army and engineering design into creativity research, brain stimulation, and building at-home tDCS devices for mental health care. This is a practical conversation about transcranial direct-current stimulation, depression, neuroplasticity, usability, regulation, and what it takes to make brain stimulation safe and accessible outside the clinic. We explore how PlatoScience approaches medical-grade at-home tDCS, why the company works through clinicians, and how design, aesthetics, treatment adherence, and patient experience all shape the future of neuromodulation. Key takeaways: 🔹 Why PlatoScience is focused on at-home tDCS for depression 🔹 How tDCS changes neuronal thresholds without forcing brain activity 🔹 Why medical-grade usability matters for patient adherence 🔹 Why Balder believes mental health care should keep a human in the loop 🔹 How regulation could shape the future of non-invasive brain stimulation Host: Chay Carter Founder, Carter Sciences | Co-Founder, Reccy Neuro LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chay-carter/ Guest: Balder Onarheim Founder and CEO, PlatoScience LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baldero/ Learn more about PlatoScience: https://www.platoscience.com/ Key Chapters: 00:39 Introduction to PlatoScience and At-Home tDCS 01:55 From the Norwegian Army to Brain Stimulation 05:51 From Biohacking to Medical-Grade tDCS 07:39 Depression, Ageing and Neurodivergence 09:50 How tDCS and TES Work 16:32 PlatoScience’s Device and Clinician-Led Model 29:25 Design, Treatment Sessions and Patient Usability 38:54 EU Regulation and the Future of Brain Stimulation The Open Loop is a podcast exploring the people, companies, and ideas shaping the future of neurotechnology. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations with the founders, researchers, operators, and industry leaders building what comes next in brain health, medicine, and technology. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone interested in neurotechnology. New episodes of The Open Loop drop weekly. Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Reccy Neuro — the home of neurotech. Jobs, companies, investors, events, Cortex industry intelligence, and specialist resources for the neurotech market. Learn more about Reccy Neuro here: https://neuro.reccy.dev/