
Do It Yourself Brain Stimulation has Scientists Worried - hexagonc
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/12/transcranial-direct-current-stimulation-tdcs-technology/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29
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ChuckMcM
I am convinced that at some point some smart sod will figure out how to create
a 'high' by using something along the lines of this. Put on a headband, flick
the switch, and blam! high as a kite. Turn the switch off, and back to being
sober.

When that happens, the world will change in a very unpredictable way.
Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade will
suddenly have no where to go. All the social aspects of shared inebriation
will still be in place but most if not all of the economic aspects will be
killed.

I expect my kids will get to witness this change.

~~~
msluyter
I think what you've just described is Larry Niven's "wirehead."

 _In Larry Niven 's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been
fitted with an electronic brain implant (called a "droud" in the stories) to
stimulate the pleasure centres of their brain. In the Known Space universe,
wireheading is the most addictive habit known (Louis Wu is the only given
example of a recovered addict), and wireheads usually die from neglecting
themselves in favour of the ceaseless pleasure. Wireheading is so powerful and
easy that it becomes an evolutionary pressure, selecting against that portion
of Known Space humanity without self-control. Wireheading need not use an
actual brain implant; the pleasure centre can be remotely activated by a small
device called a "tasp" (important in the Ringworld novels)._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_\(science_fiction\))

~~~
gwern
We already have wireheading, but the surgery is too invasive for it to be
anything but an obscure curiosity.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
There is a lot of ambiguity about whether we are able to activate pleasure or
merely activate wanting.

~~~
jlgreco
Seems pretty easy to test, though hard to test _ethically_ perhaps. Wire
someone up, flip the switch, tell them that they can turn it off if they don't
like it. If they like it, then is it not by definition pleasure? Perhaps they
find "wanting" to be pleasurable, but I know that I for one do not.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
it has been tried on humans only twice AFAIK

~~~
bumbledraven
Details/cite?

~~~
s_baby
[http://www.wireheading.com/delgado/index.html](http://www.wireheading.com/delgado/index.html)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
hadn't seen this. Thank you!

~~~
s_baby
There was a particular case study I can't find that documented intense
euphoria. To the point the subjects were borderline dysfunctional, like the
rats with the cocaine dispensing lever experiment.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
brb heading to Hong Kong for illicit surgery.

------
asifjamil
I'm actually a PhD student studying this exact technology in Germany. I can
say without a doubt that this type of stimulation has proven potential in
enhancing cognitive functions (if proper protocol and safety aspects are
respected). This is a really exciting field which I think will really explode
in the next few years once the montage and paradigms are optimized (which is
exactly what I'm working on!)

~~~
tassl
Can you point to some (respected) publications on the field that can prove
cognitive enhancement?

~~~
toomuchtodo
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=transcranial+direct...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=transcranial+direct+current+stimulation)

------
qdot76367
So there's already a tDCS helmet headed toward the consumer market sometime in
the next couple of months, aimed at "gamers" because that doesn't really look
as suspicious as making health claims.

[http://foc.us](http://foc.us)

------
DanBC
> Mr. Siever treats himself for chronic depression, reporting equally striking
> results.

I wish they wouldn't report such anecdota so strongly. Siever is unlikely to
have conducted controlled double-blind studies on himself, so he can't know
it's the tCDS doing anything or not.

~~~
glenra
You don't actually need a controlled double-blind study to notice a medical
effect, IF the effect is sufficiently strong and consistent. Traditional
"controlled double-blind studies" are nice to have, but are much too likely to
accidentally reject good medicines and medical treatments of the sort that
might be discovered and confirmed via this sort of personal experimentation.
(Yes, false positives are bad, but false negatives are bad too!)

The era of personalized medicine is just beginning and these sort of devices
seem unusually well-suited for that sort of approach.

~~~
glenra
UPDATE: I'm getting downvoted, most likely from people who don't know what I'm
referring to. So let me clarify: The platonic ideal of a traditional drug or
medical treatment is something that works the same way on EVERYBODY. When you
do a controlled double-blind study, you specify one specific treatment regimen
- use dose X as a function of unit mass or of condition severity - and test
whether that (a) has a statistically significant effect which (b) beats the
control.

Now imagine a drug which has this effect: half the time it makes people better
(often quite a bit better). 30% of the time it has no effect, and 20% of the
time it has a NEGATIVE effect - it makes people WORSE along the metric being
measured.

(one example of a treatment that has this sort of outcome pattern: exercise.
If you measure blood pressure or cholesterol levels, it helps many but hurts
some (about 12%) and has no effect on others(about 20%))

A double-blind study of THAT sort of intervention will find a low AVERAGE
effect because the AVERAGE includes the nonresponders and the negative
responders.

In contrast, a "quantified self" personal science study where somebody
carefully tracks their statistic and tries out an intervention while doing
some A/B comparisons, is likely to discover whether they ARE or ARE NOT a
positive responder. If they ARE, further experimentation can help find the
best dose regimen for their particular situation.

(of course, if we knew and could measure exactly which factors make some
people positive responders and others negative responders, then we could test
in the traditional way. But until we DO know that, studying at the individual
level is often the best or even the only available way to figure out how to
help individuals.)

As for my "IF the effect is sufficiently strong and consistent" bit, I'll just
note that big controlled studies are sometimes abandoned when an intervention
is SO successful it is deemed unethical to deny the treatment to the control
group.

~~~
gwern
> A double-blind study of THAT sort of intervention will find a low AVERAGE
> effect because the AVERAGE includes the nonresponders and the negative
> responders.

It'd also find a higher standard deviation in the experimental group, which,
especially if the data had been graphically plotted, would trigger an f-test
to check for increased variance. Finding the increase would then become the
main result and one could start looking for predictive variables. (F-tests
might not be statistics 101, perhaps, but it's 102.)

> As for my "IF the effect is sufficiently strong and consistent" bit, I'll
> just note that big controlled studies are sometimes abandoned when an
> intervention is SO successful it is deemed unethical to deny the treatment
> to the control group.

Usually after checking that the interim data is statistically-significant
enough, assuming this wasn't built into the study design from the start as an
adaptive experimental design...

~~~
glenra
A bit more regarding "sufficiently strong and consistent" effects: We all do
little experiments all the time and generally reach valid conclusions based on
them. Some examples. Imagine your friend says one of these things:

"Spicy pepperoni pizza late at night gives me heartburn; I feel better when I
stick to milder foods."

"My stomach hurts when I eat cheese."

"I feel great when I get around 8 hours of sleep, I get grumpy when I only
have 4 hours and I feel groggy if I stay in bed for more than 10 hours."

"If I drink caffeine after 7pm, I have trouble getting to sleep."

"Gin makes me sick, but vodka is fine."

Somehow, all of those seem like PERFECTLY REASONABLE statements, even though
they are anecdotal and based on a sample population of one. Nobody says this
is invalid information because it wasn't double-blind and there was no control
group. Nobody ever says, to paraphrase the upstream comment I responded to:

> _I wish they wouldn 't report such anecdota so strongly. Joe is unlikely to
> have conducted controlled double-blind studies on himself, so he can't know
> it's the {pizza, cheese, caffeine, sleep...} doing anything or not._

Right?

But if Joe says: "When I zap myself with tCDS it helps relieve my depression",
he DOES get that sort of complaint!

Why is that? Why is it okay to report that Joe said "I feel less depressed
when I exercise" or "I feel less depressed when I get to bed earlier" but NOT
okay to report that Joe said "I feel less depressed when I use the tCDS"? Why
is he allowed to KNOW those first two things based just on personal knowledge
of how he feels, but not that last one?

There is a weird and (I think) inappropriate double standard at work here.

~~~
DanBC
Many people used to have knee arthroscopy. Doctors felt it was useful.
Patients thought it was useful. It had a credible mechanism of action.

When we do double blind placebo controlled studies we find that knee
arthroscopy for some conditions is no better than placebo.

> Why is it okay to report that Joe said "I feel less depressed when I
> exercise" or "I feel less depressed when I get to bed earlier" but NOT okay
> to report that Joe said "I feel less depressed when I use the tCDS"?

It isn't okay to tell people to do exercise to treat their depression unless
you have some kind of evidence to back that up. The evidence is weak, and the
effect is small, but more research needs to be done.
([http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004366/exercise-for-
depressi...](http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004366/exercise-for-depression))

It is not okay to tell people to go to bed earlier to treat their depression
unless you have evidence to back that up. I can think of a bunch of pros and
cons for going to be earlier. I wouldn't voice my uninformed opinion in a
national newspaper, and I wouldn't want that national newspaper to trumpet my
uninformed opinion as a facty truthy comment.

> Why is he allowed to KNOW those first two things based just on personal
> knowledge of how he feels, but not that last one?

My position is that he doesn't know any of those things, not that he can know
two of them but not the last one. Especially things like your gin / vodka
example: I'd want evidence. Get a bunch of people in a room. Dip the rim of
some drinking glasses in gin, and fill the glasses with cold tonic water.
Observe. They're not drinking any alcohol, but they do have loosened
inhibitions.

So far I've just spoken about the need for a trial. Good quality trials are
always needed. Cognitive biases are very strong, and very hard to protect
against, and can cause people to undergo lengthy, risky, poor quality
"treatment" that just doesn't work. (There are many good books about this.
"Bad Science" is a good quick read.)

Let's look at some other flags that might cause us to want better data, rather
than just accept his word.

He sells the device for $600. Right there is a big flag.

Either he knows it doesn't work (I don't think this is the case) and he's a
scumbag, cynically exploiting people. Or he really does think it works, and he
wants to help people. Either way, better data is a good thing. Better data
helps us stop the scumbags, and better data helps people like him sell the
device and treat ill people.

------
guylhem
"Scientists call for more regulation (ie more grant $) before the devices is
sold to the public, film at 11."

The only problem is the DIY crowd. A 9V battery is not exactly under
regulation. What people do with their body is their problem.

~~~
rosser
_What people do with their body is their problem._

Tell that to the people behind drug laws, and abortion laws, and sodomy laws,
and, and, and...

~~~
rmc
Or trans people, who have to jump through hoops to get hormones or surgery.

------
Telomer
There is a subreddit for this if you feel like reading more
[http://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/](http://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/)

~~~
wisty
With the warning on the subreddit: Caution: you can be killed by a 9V battery

~~~
Ygg2
You can be killed by a 9V battery? How? Not from the charge I hope (not
sarcastic).

~~~
will_work4tears
There's a link to the darwinawards site on the subreddit. Apparently it was a
Navy service member that stuck the electrodes into his fingers and the current
traveled through the bloodstream across his heart.

Sounds like an urban legend, but if you read the back and forth on it, it's
rather interesting.

~~~
RobotCaleb
I believe you have to provide a path that would go through the heart. Simply
piercing the same finger with both electrodes shouldn't do much to the heart.

~~~
will_work4tears
I believe he pierced each finger with a different electrode.

------
jurassic
I applaud these DIYers. If there's one thing my PhD stint taught me, it's that
the high stakes nature of dead ends in one's science career has forced most
scientists to be extremely conservative in what they write grants for. I fully
expect the next large advances in biohacking to emerge from people working in
their garages and hackerspaces while collaborating online, not from a lab on
NSF funding.

------
gtani
I'm no scientist but anecdotal TDCS had me... concerned

    
    
         induce phosphenes by accident -- blue white flashes in the entire visual field, 
    

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3525744](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3525744)

~~~
toomuchtodo
When it occurs, its not as bad as it sounds. This is my own experience though.
YMMV.

------
ultramundane8
I may run into a lot of experts (from multiple fields) here on HN with strong
opinions to the contrary, but here are my two cents.

If I could double my cognitive ability for 5 years, then die from an unknown
complication with this type of therapy, I would do it without blinking an eye.

~~~
zem
it would be deeply ironic if, with your doubled cognitive ability, you
realised that that was a bad bargain.

~~~
ultramundane8
Haha, yes it would. But likely my ability would at least enable me to convince
others of this discovery!

~~~
drivers99
This is speculative, but it has been suggested that some people's thinking is
so advanced that we can't understand what they are trying to do. [1] So it
could be the case that what you try to convey once you reach that advanced
state isn't comprehensible by normal people.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Genius_Theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Genius_Theory)

~~~
pstuart
I think this gets played out with the "normal" population all the time....

------
Qantourisc
Wait what polarity reversed ? Current goes from A to B, so it doesn't quite
matter ! So side B from the skull is negative and A is positive, unless you
reverse it, then it's reversed ... But regardless one side will always be
"reversed"...

So the question is rather where you want the current to go exactly, but if
"reversing" the polarity is bad, it's safe to say EVERYTHING is bad. (Unless
you don't mind destroying a part of the brain to get to another part.)

------
kunai
The scientific method has advanced so far in the past century that any new
"breakthrough" without proper empirical evidence and due process of science
makes me feel like it's just quack science.

Forget about the journals, forget about peer review, just have evidence.
Anecdota have proven to be very unreliable in critical testing scenarios.

~~~
beagle3
So has so called "evidence". Can't google right now, but recently someone
tried and failed to reproduce ~60% of celebrated cancer results published in
Science & Nature from the last 20 years. Also, ionaddis has shown most
published research in medicine and nutrition to be wrong.

"Publish or perish" has replaced the gold of gold standard with tungsten, with
everyone related aware of it, but no one doing anything about it.

~~~
zxcdw
I remember the amount of non-reproducible research was as high as 90 %? Google
returns some hits from May 7th(and I remember the HN post from around a month
ago, we talk about the same thing I think) or so with that title, but perhaps
the actual number is somewhere between 60 and 90 %?

~~~
beagle3
You're right, I was misremembering.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-
cancer-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-
idUSBRE82R12P20120328)

Thanks for correcting - it was much worse than I remembered.

------
caycep
I don't think he can do too much damage brain wise - the effects of the
noninvasive transcranial magnetic/direct current stimulation only last for a
few hours anyway.

The bigger issue is potentially getting skin burns by not getting the
circuitry hooked up correctly. Or maybe frying your electronic gadgets if you
have a magnetic stim device. I guess maybe you could theoretically trigger
seizures if you have epilepsy, but in that case you'd be seeing a doctor
regularly anyway and wouldn't have to DIY these things.

------
tehwalrus
Of course, if you zap the wrong part of your brain you could also _decrease_
your cognitive skills.

I'll wait until there's more evidence before I break out the soldering iron.

------
DannoHung
I think I'd want some longitudinal studies before I tried this.

------
juskrey
If something can make your body better without adverse effects, it is already
there. You are not smarter than 3.5 billions of life evolution, period.

~~~
pkroll
I get what you're saying, and basically agree. But... A) how much of an
adverse effect? And B) Plenty of medical procedures can "make your body better
without adverse effects" (at least not as adverse as the medical condition
continuing on unchecked).

~~~
juskrey
Ah, at least. Yeah, medical procedures can make you better. In case your
condition is acute. But we have no single medicine that will make healthy
human better for a lifetime. Well, single medicated "you" MAY outlive "you"
without a medicine, but that is a play of statistics, in general there is no
force to tell ya if you will suffer instead. Even a vaccine is a simulation of
acute condition, but the key for this effect is single stimulation.

