US Olympic track star out to prove Halo Sport headphones make him faster, stronger - CNET

Neuropriming can improve an athlete's strength, explosiveness and dexterity during workouts, Halo says.

"This is not your average neurostimulator," Daniel Chao, Halo's CEO, said recently at the company's San Francisco headquarters. "We think about the muscles for strength and the heart to achieve endurance. We are priming your brain to achieve maximum performance, to be just as strong."

Chao, a medical doctor, and Brett Wingeier, a biomedical engineer, founded Halo Neuroscience in 2013. The pair previously created NeuroPace, a device to treat epileptic seizures that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2014.

Backers and experimenters

In its short life, Halo has attracted big-name investors, including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz. Reed Hundt, a former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and Susan Paley, former chief executive of the Apple-owned Beats, are advisers to the company. (The Halo headset bears more than a passing resemblance to Beats' popular design.)

The US ski team uses Halo, as do a host of MLB, NFL and NBA teams, Chao said. The 2015 NBA champion Golden State Warriors, for example, spent this past record-breaking season piloting the headphones.

"We're looking into every advantage we can to make us a better team," Daniel Brusilovsky, who leads the Warriors' digital initiatives, said earlier this year. That edge to get one more win, is critical, he added.

Halo isn't the only product designed to improve performance by targeting the brain. There's the Fisher-Wallace Stimulator, which treats anxiety, depression and insomnia, and foc.us v2, which also uses tDCS but is specialized more for video gamers.

It's an open question how effective devices like Halo are. Not enough data exists to confirm any performance boosts are caused by the device. Some brain scientists say it could simply be a placebo effect, an improvement caused by belief the device is helping.

"Brain stimulation is not a one size fits all," said Ted Zanto, a neuroscientist at the University of Califoia, San Francisco, who says more research is needed to measure the effect of tDCS on the brain. "I don't know if this will make an athlete incrementally better or worse."

Chao says he gets the skepticism.

"We understand that we're creating a new category and it's going to take a lot of education," he said. "We're game."

We try Halo for ourselves

And so was I, along with my colleagues Lexy Savvides and Josh Miller. We headed to Halo's headquarters for a couple of demonstrations.

Within seconds of putting the $649 headset on, I could feel a tingling sensation on my frontal lobes. It morphed a pulsating, rhythmic waves that made me move my head -- a lot. I had the device set at 8 (10 is the highest). Josh, a photographer, began snapping shots as I felt more focused, even chattier.

Chao smiled. Josh laughed.

On a a separate visit, Lexy measured her grip strength while wearing the headphones. The technicians concluded her strength had increased by 9 percent.

"I felt like I was becoming more alert to my surroundings," Lexy said. "I felt as if my speech sped up a little bit. I felt like I had more clarity of thought."

And that potential to improve his focus and performance fascinates Rodgers. The Olympic sprinter (and Usain Bolt rival) will be competing on the US men's 4x100 relay team in two weeks, has been using the Halo headphones for more than a month. He plans to wear the headphones during warmups, in between races and in the weight room in Rio.