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Muse is a wearable device in the form of a headband designed to sense the electrical rhythms of the brain. The headband is coupled with a smartphone app that monitors the user’s brain electrical activity in real time. Users receive immediate feedback about their brain activity while they meditate, so that a “calm” pattern can be achieved. After each session, users can view a graph showing the amount of time spent in calm, active, and neutral states. Users can track and measure their progress.
Read the Professional Review for Muse: A Professional ReviewAvailable for: Requires iOS 11.2 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Android 5.0 and up. Web The product combines a physical headband with an app.
Developer: InteraXon Inc
Type of Treatment: Mindfulness
Targeted Conditions: Stress and Anxiety
Target Audience: Not Specified
Designed to be used in conjunction with a professional? No
Languages Available: English, French, German, Spanish
Cost: Free with in-app purchases
Get it on: Apple App Store, Google Play, Web
Multiple studies have validated the use of Muse to collect EEG recordings. To date, only one study has explored the impacts of using Muse on well-being in an RCT.
In a randomized, active control trial, healthy adult participants carried out 6 weeks of daily practice using Muse (n = 13), or a control condition of daily online math training (n = 13).Training effects were assessed on target measures of attention and well-being. Participants also completed daily post-training surveys assessing effects on mood, body awareness, calm, effort, and stress. Using Muse was associated with greater body awareness and calm, and improvements in wellbeing (Bhayee et al., 2016. https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-016-0168-6)
Another study sought to test whether Muse could be used to quickly collect EEG data that would yield observable and quantifiable ERP components without the use of event-markers. The paper aimed to validate the effectiveness of Muse for ERP research, by collecting Muse EEG data while 60 participants performed both an oddball and a reward-learning task on a laptop computer. For comparison purposes, we randomly selected the data from a matched number of participants who had performed these same two tasks while EEG data was recorded on a Brain Vision ActiChamp system with a standard 10–20 electrode configuration. The paper highlighted that the Muse system could be used to conduct ERP research with ease (Krigolson et al., 2017. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00109/full)
Other studies support the use of Muse to collect EEG recordings: e.g., Hashemi et al., 2016; Kovacevic et al., 2015, Karydis et al., 2015; Bashivan et al., 2016; Armanfard et al., 2016
https://www.eneuro.org/content/3/6/ENEURO.0275-16.2016
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130129
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2769493.2769581
https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.00985
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