HKION BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Issue: April – May 2026


1. HKION Institute News & Coming Events

Upcoming Certificate Programme

HKION is pleased to announce the upcoming "Non-Invasive Neuromodulation Mastery: Foundations and Multidisciplinary Clinical Applications" certificate programme. This intensive 2-day course is designed for health professionals seeking to integrate evidence-based neuromodulation into their clinical practice.

  • Date: 18 - 19 May 2026 (Monday & Tuesday)
  • Time: 09:00 – 17:00
  • Venue: Kowloon Room, Mezzanine Floor, Kowloon Shangri-La
  • Registration: Click here

Recent Milestone: Pain Management Workshop

On January 11, 2026, HKION successfully hosted the "Clinical Application of rTMS on Pain Conditions" workshop. The event fostered a collaborative community of TMS practitioners and was supported by Wah Yip Medical Products Co, Ltd.

2. Industry Development: Milestone FDA Approval for At-Home tDCS

In a landmark decision for the neuromodulation field, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted marketing approval on December 8, 2025, for the first at-home transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) device to treat depression (Flow FL-100). This regulatory milestone marks a shift toward decentralized psychiatric care.

  • Clinical Efficacy: Approval was based on the Empower trial, where 58.3% of patients achieved remission from moderate to severe major depressive disorder (MDD) after 10 weeks of use (Psychiatric Times, 2025).
  • Accessibility: The device is intended for use as a monotherapy or adjunctive treatment. It utilizes a digital app to guide the user, ensuring clinical-grade protocols are followed in a home environment (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).


3. Recent Academic Research Summary

Economic Viability of TMS (The Lancet Psychiatry, 2026)

  • A large-scale economic evaluation has demonstrated that rTMS and intermittent Theta-Burst Stimulation (iTBS) are not only clinically effective but also cost-saving compared to standard treatments for treatment-resistant depression. This provides a robust argument for the integration of TMS into public health frameworks (McCrone et al., 2026).

Neuroplasticity in Chronic Pain (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2025)

  • Research confirms that rTMS targeting the Primary Motor Cortex (M1) promotes significant neural circuit reorganization in patients with chronic low back pain. This study underscores NIBS as a critical non-pharmacological therapeutic approach to reduce long-term opioid reliance (Chen et al., 2025).


Optimizing ADHD Protocols (Frontiers in Neurology, 2025)

  • A network meta-analysis of 37 randomized controlled trials concluded that dual-site tDCS protocols are significantly more effective than single-site stimulation for improving working memory in patients with ADHD. This finding assists clinicians in refining stimulation parameters for cognitive enhancement (Ibrahim et al., 2025).


References

Chen, Y., et al. (2025). Non-invasive brain stimulation for chronic low back pain: Current techniques and future perspectives. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 19. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12932456/

Hong Kong Institute of Neuromodulation. (2026). Coming events and institutional aims. https://hkion.com/

Ibrahim, S., et al. (2025). Comparative efficacy of various transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) protocols for working memory in ADHD: A network meta-analysis of 37 randomized controlled trials. Frontiers in Neurology, 16, 1721182.

McCrone, P., et al. (2026). Is it time for mental health services to invest in neurostimulation? An economic evaluation of transcranial magnetic stimulation therapies for the treatment of moderate to severe treatment-resistant depression in the UK. The Lancet Psychiatry, 13(1), 45-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(25)00412-X

Psychiatric Times. (2025, December 12). FDA approves first at-home brain stimulation device for treatment of depression. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/fda-approves-first-at-home-brain-stimulation-device-for-treatment-of-depression

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2025). Summary of safety and effectiveness data (SSED): Flow FL-100 (P230024). https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf23/P230024B.pdf