
Alpha-rhythm brain stimulation shown to boost creativity - ca98am79
http://www.kurzweilai.net/alpha-rhythm-brain-stimulation-shown-to-boost-creativity?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ac3411d781-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6de721fb33-ac3411d781-281895037
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88e282102ae2e5b
They only tested each condition once (twice with no stimulation), they had a
sample size of 20, and there was no control group. You can't call something a
proof of concept and also claim significance at the same time. This is not how
science should be done.

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matheweis
Were there any other side effects observed besides an increase in creativity?
Poor quality of the study aside, there are various studies [1] that have shown
assorted links between creativity and mental illness.

[1] [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-
minds/2013/10/...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-
minds/2013/10/03/the-real-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness/)

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WhitneyLand
Why is it poor quality? It's not the strongest result ever but it seems
interesting enough to justify continuing the work.

As far as greater creativity being a risk for mental illness, I havent seen
anything supporting that kind of concern. I think a bigger concern is its long
term safety in general, which hasn't been proven.

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88e282102ae2e5b
> Why is it poor quality?

While the scoring was done in a double-blind fashion, it's still completely
subjective. Maybe the person scoring the tests had just eaten a meal before
scoring the tests with the alpha-wave frequency stimulation (which has been
shown to increase scores that people give in general). Maybe the grader was
hungover for the tests with the bad scores. Maybe the grader was being paid
$9/hour and just assigned scores at random out of apathy. Maybe the
participants just happened to be in better moods on the day they did the
alpha-wave frequency test.

Having only 20 participants and doing a single trial of each frequency leaves
the study vulnerable to small effects like the ones I just mentioned. Do you
believe that all of those things, plus all of the factors I haven't even
thought of combined couldn't result in just a 7.4% variance in scores? If the
study had a control group we might know. Or if they had a much larger sample
size we could rule out random variation. So it's not that 7.4% is a small but
interesting result, it's that it's _not_ a result.

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WhitneyLand
There are lots of people trying brain stimulation on themselves at home using
parts or kits bought online.

This kind of bio-hacking seems more difficult than average to do outside of a
research or clinical setting.

Besides the normal concerns around placebo and biological differences between
people, you've got brains that differ in physical size and shape which can
affect electrode placement. Most of the equipment used is not standardized or
FDA approved.

Even the body of research that's out there hasnt been widely repeatable.

I really want this to work, maybe this team is steering in a good direction.

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exodust
Soon another research paper will report that taking a mind altering drug while
subjected to alpha waves in the form of psy trance increases creativity "even
more, like way more"!

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superobserver
tDCS montage for creativity: anode @ T2 and cathode @T1 with 1-2 mA for
20-30min. Loosens up the semantic codes for semeiotic enlightenment.

