Kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism could benefit from wearing a digital headset that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to train their brainwaves — according to the company that sells the headset.
PigPug, a wireless headset designer, claims it’s “transforming child mental health with AI-powered neurofeedback for kids with ADHD and autism.”
The company’s EEG headset measures kids’ brain’s electrical activity and gives real-time feedback that it claims helps children’s brain function in a particular way.
But critics who spoke with The Defender voiced concerns about using AI to help kids’ brains.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) senior director of science and research and the father of a child with autism, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about PigPug’s product but “wary of such technologies.”
There’s research showing that neurofeedback techniques can be effective in treating autism and ADHD, said Hooker. But, he added, “I don’t see that the AI portion of their technique has been appropriately tested.”
Laura Hanson, a board-certified neurofeedback practitioner and chiropractor who has treated children and adults for more than 15 years, agreed.
Hanson, who also is a neurodevelopmental therapist and autism specialist with an accreditation in reading quantitative EEGs (called QEEGS), said she’s reading, “The Indoctrinated Brain: How to Successfully Fend Off the Global Attack on Your Mental Freedom.”
“I’m really concerned with the push of AI,” she told The Defender. “There is something really happening in our world today that is trying to take over how we think.”
Vitali Karpeichyk, PigPug’s CEO and co-founder, told The Defender he “struggled” with autism since childhood. He said he started the company out of a passion for helping kids with ADHD and autism “to live a better life.”
Hanson thinks Karpeichyk’s “intentions are good,” but she’s concerned that wearing digital headsets may normalize brain surveillance — a hot topic at last year’s World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland — and expose kids to harmful wireless radiation.
Michael Pierce, a board-certified chiropractic neurologist for almost 30 years, has similar concerns.
Pierce, who serves on the American Chiropractic Neurology Board and the International QEEG Certification Board, told The Defender he’s come to believe there are “nefarious forces” aligned with the “medical industrial complex” that are seeking to reduce the population in Africa, India and elsewhere.
“I can’t allow us to ignore the fact that even neurofeedback — any healthcare intervention — could be usurped by those people for those means,” he said.
How does neurofeedback work?
Neurofeedback therapy, which has been around for more than 50 years and doesn’t inherently use AI, is used as a non-invasive alternative treatment to pharmaceutical drugs for a host of mental conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans.
There are at least 2,500 scientific papers on neurofeedback therapy. It works by hooking up a patient’s head to an EEG machine, which shows a trained clinician the patient’s brainwave activity.
The clinician can then analyze the EEG output to determine which areas of the brain aren’t working well and, with the patient’s input, recommend interventions to change the patient’s brainwave patterns.
While staying connected to the EEG machine, the patient receives an auditory or visual feedback signal — such as a sound gently increasing in pitch or volume or a screen that gets brighter — as their brain approaches the desired brainwave activity…
Children's Health Defense 
