My name is Giovanni Santostasi. I have a PhD in Physics and I work in the field of neuroscience of sleep at Northwestern University, in particular I'm interested in slow wave sleep. I'm also the leading neuroscientist at brain.fm. Slow wave sleep is the deepest stage of sleep and it is fundamental for learning and cognition (and several other physiological functions like getting rid of toxins in the brain, metabolism and hormonal regulation).
Slow wave sleep is one of the most regular rhythmic brain state. It is easy to recognize using an EEG system because it produces very regular bursts of large amplitude and relatively slow oscillations, called slow waves (with a frequency of about 1 Hz).
This is one of the most active fields in neuroscience right now.
Many experiments in labs around the world have shown that the amplitude of these oscillations are strongly correlated with learning activity during the day. Also performance on cognitive tasks in particular related to memory are strongly correlated with the amplitude of the slow waves.
Scientists tried to understand if slow waves were just an epiphenomenon, i.e. if they were the indicators of a fundamental physiological principle or they had a causative role, i.e. if by generating slow waves the brain caused physiological changes that helped the process of memory consolidation in the brain (making memory long stable over long term).
Therefore in the last 10 years scientists tried to modify the slow waves using external stimulation.
The used initially transcranial direct current stimulation tDCs and obtain amazing results. By creating currents that oscillated at a frequency close to the typical frequency of slow waves (about 1 Hz) they were able to enhance the amplitude of the waves. What was even more amazing that the enhancement in amplitude changed the memory performance of the study participants in a standard memory tests relatively to a sham condition. The change were not just statistical significant but quite dramatic (they enhanced by 20-30 percent the natural benefit in memory due to sleep alone).
The results were published in Nature, the most prestigious science journal. In our lab we reproduced and in fact improved these results using acoustic stimulation (using short burst of pink noise synchronized with the brain oscillations during sleep).
This and many other experiments repeated in many labs around the world show clearly that the relationship between mental states and brain rhythms is bidirectional, brain states create brain rhythms, but brain rhythms bring the brain to particular brain states.
The field of brain stimulation is relatively new in neuroscience as a very active, promising and in fact revolutionary area of research.
Sleep is just one area but people are exploring using rhythmic brain stimulation how to increase attention, information processing, improve mood and cognition in older people, helping with ADD.
It is unfortunate that in the last decades the idea of using brain waves to enhance brain function has been appropriated by charlatans and new agers.
But right now brain rhythms are making a huge come back as a legit scientific study that is bringing break throughs almost on a daily basis.
At brain.fm we are simply using the knowledge of this new field of science to improve people well being. We are moving the knowledge from the lab to people daily life.
We are not claiming to have a magical tool to enhance focus, attention, sleep.
We are doing what good scientists do. Experimenting, trying different things and using the scientific method and an evidence based approach to determine what works and what doesn't work.
I believe we are doing much better than most companies in the industry of neuroscience commercial applications because we are focused on testing with scientific means our technology and prove ourselves wrong before we make any claim.
When we do is because we see noticeable effects and reasonable repeatability of our findings.
I notice several criticisms about the small sample size of our studies.
I have to clarify that this is very typical size for pilot experiments that are trying to test new approaches in brain stimulation and other physiological studies in general.
The Nature paper I mentioned for tDCs and slow wave sleep had about 17 subjects.
Also the p=0.05 as statistical threshold is something that is used all the time in the biomed field.
Being a physicist it took me sometime to get adjusted to such small significance (in comparison with what we consider significant in physics) but it is understandable given the complexity of living systems and the great variability in human physiology.
And how many companies you know in this industry that can back up their claims with any study at all?
Or are interested in testing, experimenting, learning from their mistakes and improve their products continuously from what is learned?
We accept your criticism as an input for pushing ourselves in doing better and creating even better products.
Be part of this experiment in human enhancement and let us know what you think.
Thank you,
Giovanni
