

Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning - malvosenior
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=amping-up-brain-function

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tokenadult
This is a very interesting preliminary finding, and I promptly shared the
article link, with hat tip to Hacker News, among a Facebook private group
populated by many neuroscience researchers. But the finding needs a look more
replication and refinement,

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

before I'll stick the electrodes over my head. For one thing, I wonder what
author neuroscientists who attended the big conference where this finding was
briefly reported have had time to dig into the details of how other
neuroanatomical models of learning compare to the implicit model here.

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disgruntledphd2
It definitely is a very interesting finding, but if it wasn't placebo
controlled, then its not really demonstrating anything. Bear in mind that deep
brain stimulation is placebo responsive, which suggests that this could be
easily too. That being said, the structural changes are quite interesting. I
suppose i'll have to wait for the full paper, and there's no mention of sample
size in the article either.

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farinasa
"The researchers reported that TDCS gave a six-times baseline boost to the
amplitude of a brain wave generated in response to stimulating a sensory nerve
in the arm. The boost was not seen when mock TDCS was used, which produced a
similar sensation on the scalp, but was ineffective in exciting brain tissue."

This seems to indicate that it was placebo controlled, but I am also
interested to see the published paper.

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rbanffy
Brain altering experiments conducted by the military on military test
subjects... There must be a huge pile of science fiction written on the
subject.

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tikhonj
To be entirely fair, there's a huge pile of science fiction written about
almost _anything_. That's probably one of the reasons it's my favorite genre.

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dreyfiz
How do I build or buy it?

~~~
someperson
<http://transcenmentalism.org/OpenStim/tiki-index.php>

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brandall10
"Remarkably, MRI brain scans revealed clear structural changes in the brain as
soon as five days after TDCS."

Interesting... would love to see a study comparing long term results to
neurofeedback (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback>).

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TuxPirate
I'll buy the first baseball cap that has similar EEG electrodes!

