Scientists have now turned to using electricity on the brain and see it as the future of healthcare instead of pharmaceuticals.

The brain is the hub of all human experience. All the bad feelings and chemicals affecting a person are located there.

This has led scientists to try and change the circuitry in the brain rather than simply addressing chemical processes. All this with the help of a few electrical shocks.

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Marom Bikson, a professor of biomedical engineering and founder of a company that develops brain simulation hardware also practices electroceuticals with his transcranial direct current stimulation procedure (tCDS).

The procedure is a non-invasive one involving positive and negative electrodes on the scalp to elicit different neurological effects.

TCDS is different from the already existing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

The key difference is in the dosage of the electric current. While ECT uses large amount of electricity to flood the brain with currents -- something akin to shaking up a snow globe -- tCDS aims at specific parts of the brain that impact certain moods or cognitive abilities.

Bikson says - one of the things that can be treated with  tCDS is depression, something that has at times been unsuccessfully treated with pills.

The potentials of electroceuticals are huge. It's so big in fact that even big pharmaceutical companies are interested in trying it out.

One such pharmaceutical company that has jumped on the bandwagon is GlaxoSmithKline.

On their website, they state that bioelectronics medicines could allow them to address some diseases that have so far been untreatable. They add that they could handle it with greater precision and fewer side effects than current medicines.

They announced their foray into electroceutical in 2013 with a US $50 million venture.

Other pharmaceutical companies have also begun dabbling as well, but are less public about revealing their investments.

TagsElectroceuticals, brain, Electricity