Wearable neurotechnology

Wearable neurotechnology packages neural sensing into devices a person can put on and use unsupervised outside a lab: dry-electrode EEG headbands, in-ear EEG, portable fNIRS, and (aspirationally) wearable OPM-MEG. The engineering emphasis shifts from peak signal quality to robustness, meaning tolerance of motion and poor contact, fast self-application, comfort for hours, low power, and on-device or streamed processing.

The scientific caution is that ecological validity cuts both ways. Real-world recordings capture behaviour a lab cannot, but they also add motion, muscle, environmental, and electrode-stability artifacts that can dwarf the neural signal, and uncontrolled conditions make ground truth and reproducibility harder. Claims from wearables therefore need artifact accounting and out-of-lab validation at least as rigorous as clinical systems, not less.