
Can you supercharge your brain? - mr_tyzic
http://mosaicscience.com/story/can-you-supercharge-your-brain
======
winfred
I'm an individual who has designed [1] and built his own tDCS device,
downloaded all the PDFs, read them and then designed his own experiment: anode
over LDLPFC and cathode above right eye, 20 minutes at 2 mA, while doing Dual-
N-Back Workshop [2].

I've done between 30 and 40 sessions over a period of three years, still
ongoing. The intention was to increase my working memory, but it has also
helped with several other minor issues. By my own estimations, my fluid
intelligence has gone up significantly, it's really noticeable and I now also
score significantly higher on IQ tests.

I've combined that with my own nootropics stack and mental exercise regime,
which further enhanced my intelligence, now pushing me into genius territory.
It's a blessing, that's for sure, I can now much better strategize my life,
but there are also some downsides, like an uptick in neurotic behavior.

I'm currently working on changing my website, winfred.com [3] to a site that
lists all the details of the work I've done on myself. Does anyone think there
is value in publishing something like that?

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/comments/qn6s5/diy_tdcs_howto/](http://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/comments/qn6s5/diy_tdcs_howto/)

[2]
[http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/](http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/)
[3] [http://winfred.com/](http://winfred.com/)

~~~
natdempk
Sorry to be a pessimist here, but is there any evidence that you've increased
your intelligence in anything that can't be trained? Dual-N-Back benefits from
training, IQ tests benefit from training, and fluid intelligence is really
such a subjective term its hard to tell anything based on that. Can you
elaborate on the "minor issues" that it has helped with, how your "fluid
intelligence" has gone up, and what your mental exercise routine is? I don't
mean to be nasty, but I do have a healthy dose of skepticism about many of
these topics.

~~~
winfred
Why would I consider your response pessimistic? It seems to be a totally valid
remark to me.

No, there is no evidence at all. However, the medication I have been taking,
is known to improve the ability to focus in people with a certain DNA marker.
And I have that DNA marker and I take this medication. The same goes with
tDCS, over and over it is proven to improve certain brain functions, I have
been using this device for the last 3 years now, the device has built in
checks that show me that the current is actually going through my skull, I've
seen the studies that show the flow of the electrons and I know where the
electrodes are placed. I think we can make some assertions on the effects this
has had on my brain?

Regarding the minor issues, I sometimes have small bouts of depression,
nothing too bad really, I never contemplate suicide for example, but still, it
is nice that after a tDCS session these depressions tend to disappear. It
could be coincidence, but there are research papers
[http://www.tmslab.org/publications/165.pdf](http://www.tmslab.org/publications/165.pdf)
that also seem to imply that tDCS helps with depressions.

The mental exercise consisted mainly of no longer using my episodic memory (I
have very limited time related memory storage, it's really pathetic in some
sense) and reading hundreds of audiobooks on the following topics:

Psychology, Early Roman Civilization, Early Christian Religion, General
History, Battle Tactics, Modern Warfare, Late Christian Religions, Philosophy,
Story Telling, Programming (well, I just learned that on the computer, not
with an audio book).

As a result of doing that for a long time (over 10 years), 5 hours per day, I
am now a theoretical subject matter expert on a wide range of topics.

~~~
delluminatus
Over 10 years! I am extremely impressed with your dedication. You must've
spent maybe 20,000 hours listening to audiobooks, which is kind of
astonishing. I would almost be more impressed if you emerged from such a
regimen _without_ being a subject matter expert.

In my experience, trying to assess the effects of a medication or technique on
yourself is an exercise in frustration. Although you can do legitimate double-
blind experiments on yourself, it's usually impossible to properly control the
variables which can affect the outcome (diet, exercise, sleep, work, stress,
relationships, etc. all have an impact).

So, I'm a big fan of the "assume it works because the studies say it should"
approach that you describe. It's not clean or certain but it's eminently
practical, and it has the fringe benefit of giving you a lot of opportunities
to benefit from placebo :)

~~~
winfred
Thanks, you're one of the few that gets the implications of what I am doing
and why I am doing it in this way.

One of the problems I ran into while studying is the decay of the information.
It takes quite some time to store all this information (and even more if you
try to do some hypothesizing or brain storming with multiple aspects of the
information), that by the time I had a decent amount of knowledge, I started
noticing that parts of it had already gone bad (proven partly or completely
false after I read it) and needed maintenance.

From my perspective it didn't require much dedication. I like reading, all I
had to do is make sure I read almost only non-fiction and that the knowledge
maps of the subject fields overlap enough so I can get maximal understanding
on the first reading. It's just an entertaining puzzle that doesn't have a
predetermined outcome.

~~~
TrevorJ
Regarding information decay, have you looked into spaced repetition? If not, I
strongly suggest it, it's an effective approach to this very problem. Also,
the memory palace can be very useful.

------
ChuckMcM
It is clear you can damage your brain by having electrical current pass
through it, and it has been demonstrated in a bunch of different species
(including humans) that electrical charges in the brain are observable when
the brain is active. And it has been demonstrated that directly stimulating
motor neurons with electricity causes them to 'activate'. So the non-question
is whether or not this sort of activity can effect your brain.

The question then is can the changes induced by this external stimulus have
more positive than negative impact on your brain? That would be easier to
answer with a better understanding of _how_ the brain worked (as opposed to
what parts of it were active when it was working) but it can certainly be an
interesting source of experimentation.

What surprises me most about this research is that we have not yet invented
'wire heads' or folks who are addicted to the artificial stimulation of the
pleasure cortex of their brain. There is a clear market for such a device, it
would not require smuggling any narcotics, and it would seem to be nominally
cheap to manufacture. Further, it would seem that finding a way to reliably
stimulate the pleasure centers is a much more tractable problem than trying to
stimulate memory or intelligence.

I keep an eye on this research, I've known too many people with clinical
depression for whom existing therapies were unsuccessful in treating that
depression, but I expect to see the illicit use appear on the market first,
then I'll know we're close to answering the question posed by the article.

~~~
Lambdanaut
Can we currently activate the pleasure center non-invasively? The only
experiments I've heard of this have been invasively on rats and a few humans.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Some of the deep brain stimulation research is focused on using a carefully
constructed magnetic fields such that they can create a 'node' at any point
inside the skull. Then by modulating that node create an electrical current
using the available ions.

I have no idea if that will be a fruitful path for them but it has the
'feature' that it can act in any part of the brain.

~~~
ihnorton
Interesting - this?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_transcranial_magnetic_stim...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)

I hadn't seen this before. Very cool!

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yup. Still challenging to get it to narrow areas.

------
yawgmoth
Fascinating topic - glad to see it mentioned here. tDCS may be effective in
improving working memory [4], treatment of depression [1], pain management
[2], improved motor control [3]. You can find out how they work, how to build
one, or where to get a commercial product via the r/tdcs FAQ [5].

To be fair, it does remind me of Ringworld, where 'wirehead' addicts would
starve themselves to remain plugged in. Wild!

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372849/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3372849/)

[2]
[http://www.tmslab.org/publications/164.pdf](http://www.tmslab.org/publications/164.pdf)

[3]
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/10710628_Facilitatio...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/10710628_Facilitation_of_implicit_motor_learning_by_weak_transcranial_direct_current_stimulation_of_the_primary_motor_cortex_in_the_human)

[4]
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51068527_Improving_w...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51068527_Improving_working_memory_the_effect_of_combining_cognitive_activity_and_anodal_transcranial_direct_current_stimulation_to_the_left_dorsolateral_prefrontal_cortex)

[5]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/tdcs/wiki/faq](http://www.reddit.com/r/tdcs/wiki/faq)

------
aethertap
Here are some highlights that caught my attention from the article (tl;dr):

Imaging the brain first, to target the stimulation to the active region:

"The MRN team used this software in part of their DARPA-funded research.
First, they imaged volunteers’ brains to see which regions were active as they
learned to spot threats. Then they applied 2 milliamps of direct current for
30 minutes to that crucial region – the inferior frontal cortex. They found
that stimulation halved the time it took volunteers to learn. This was a huge
surprise, says Clark. “Most tDCS studies don’t achieve a huge effect. A lot
are borderline.”

This is one of the criticisms that has been levelled at tDCS: the results
aren’t always that good. Clark is convinced this is because a lot of the
studies haven’t involved imaging the brain first, to pinpoint the regions that
really need stimulation. “A lot rely on common knowledge about how the brain
is meant to be organised. I’ve learned in 33 years of looking at the brain
that we still have a lot to learn,” he says. Michael Weisend, who collaborated
on the study, agrees – he calls the imaging work “the secret sauce”."

Using both excitatory and inhibitory stimulation to increase the effectiveness
of training:

"Brain imaging suggested that the best way to do this would be to stimulate
the motor cortex while the volunteer was doing the task. But McKinley and his
team added a twist: after the stimulation, they use tDCS in reverse to inhibit
the volunteers’ prefrontal cortex, which is involved in conscious thinking.
The day after the stimulation, the volunteers are brought back for re-testing.
“The results we’re getting are fantastic,” McKinley says. People getting a hit
of both mid-test and inhibitory stimulation did 250 per cent better in their
retests, far outperforming those who had received neither. Used in this way,
it seems that tDCS can turbo-boost the time it takes for someone to go from
being a novice at a task to being an expert."

Side-effects seem to be absent from evidence up to this point:

"So far, there seem to be no harmful effects of tDCS, at least, not at the
levels or durations of stimulation that are routinely used. Weisend believes
there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and admits there could be side-effects
to tDCS that no one knows about yet."

~~~
natdempk
A wired article [0] mentions a study that found trade-offs in studying using
tDCS, albeit minor ones. It sounds like tDCS increased learning rate, but also
increased recall time for the knowledge learned compared to non-tDCS learning.
I can't find a link to the study they summarize, but here's a quote from the
article:

> Those who had the parietal area involved in numerical cognition stimulated
> learned the new number system more quickly than those who got sham
> stimulation, the researchers report today in the Journal of Neuroscience.
> But at the end of the weeklong study their reaction times were slower when
> they had to put their newfound knowledge to use to solve a new task that
> they hadn’t seen during the training sessions. ”They had trouble accessing
> what they’d learned,” Cohen Kadosh said.

> The volunteers who had the prefrontal area involved in learning and memory
> stimulated showed the opposite pattern. They were slower than the control
> group to learn the new numerical system, but they performed faster on the
> new test at the end of the experiment. The bottom line, says Cohen Kadosh,
> is that stimulating either brain region had both benefits and drawbacks.
> ”Just like with drugs, there seem to be side effects,” he said.

[0] [http://www.wired.com/2013/03/cognitive-
enhancement/](http://www.wired.com/2013/03/cognitive-enhancement/)

------
JackFr
I'd like to see more concrete detail on the experimental design, to convince
myself that this wasn't much more than placebo effect. Additionally, assuming
the effect is real, it would be nice to have a concrete and detailed theory
for the mechanism through which the effect works.

I find myself extremely skeptical of these results.

~~~
ZoFreX
I am incredibly skeptical. There are a lot of red flags here:

* Huge incentive to keep getting positive results because money was/is needed * Higher ups insisting this is great and works before the science is finished - this can cause a lot of pressure to focus on positive results and gloss over negative * Scatter gun approach - they're doing a lot of different experiments, and are allowed to fail on lots of them: "they want to promote research that is very cutting-edge and very risky; a 90 per cent failure rate in their portfolio is okay, because the 10 per cent that works will change the world" \- it's pretty likely somewhere in that region of experiments will show results just through sheer chance. Are they controlling for this? * A wide number of not particularly related benefits from a single, simple cause whose mechanism is not understood (I understand that breakthroughs occasionally look like this, but it's also a hallmark of snake oil) * Possible cherry picking: "This is one of the criticisms that has been levelled at tDCS: the results aren’t always that good" and "people do not respond equally to stimulation, and no one yet knows exactly why". Could the reason be that they are sometimes seeing positive results due to chance or placebo?

Overall, their claims are extraordinary and their evidence is anything but.
I'm not saying there's nothing here, but so far I am not convinced that these
researchers aren't fooling themselves.

------
ommunist
This article is very shallow. I would rather redirect you to this ->
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_1P6v24riU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_1P6v24riU)
<\- Practical brain boosting in London today. I visited Andrew's lab in
Wembley. Very impressive. He is also very fond of old school nootropics. Also
see Hacking the Wetware meet-up - [http://www.meetup.com/London-
Futurists/events/79975272/](http://www.meetup.com/London-
Futurists/events/79975272/) UPD: Yes, you can supercharge your brain. It is
reprogrammable. But there are costs to cover and risks to take.

------
rollthehard6
(Subscription needed sadly)
[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129570.500-healing-s...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129570.500-healing-
spark-hack-body-electricity-to-replace-drugs.html) Read the dead tree version
and it recounts a company who are building implantable devices which can be
used to stimulate the vagus nerve to reduce chronic pain.

Update - Said corporation :
[http://www.electrocoremedical.com/](http://www.electrocoremedical.com/)

The article from another source :

[http://www.bodyshox.com/blog/science/body-hack-healing-
spark](http://www.bodyshox.com/blog/science/body-hack-healing-spark)

------
mandeepj
Yes with adequate sleep, meditation and thinking positive

~~~
yawgmoth
Spot on. A quick perusal of many cognitive enhancement-centered communities
(/r/Nootropics, Longecity, Bluelight, etc) will reveal that sleep and
mindfulness are the first things that need to be improved, not last.

~~~
dominotw
I was always confused about what 'mindfulness' means. Does it mean
concentrating on one current thing? Then why not call it concentration.
Alternatively, does it mean that my brain has a 'controller' which goads the
'controlled' to be more mindful? To me this duality of our perception feels
absurd. It creates internal conflict and somehow this is supposed to be good
for you?

Do other animals feel this duality? Or this phenomenon unique to human beings?

~~~
npsimons
Not that I'm any sort of expert in mindfulness, but I like to relate the
concept via a few analogies. The first is that for dieting, one strategy is to
be _mindful_ of your satiety. Pause between bites and feel if you are full.
Another is for training. Exercise is good, but to train effectively, you have
to pay attention to how your body feels, not just to prevent injuries and know
when to rest, but also while training, so that you make sure every movement is
actually influencing your body the way you want.

With mindfulness, you place the focus of introspection on your mind: what
emotions are you feeling? Why do you feel that way? Have you lost focus? When
attempting to learn are you keeping your mind active? It's sort of like
"situational awareness" turned inward, or honing your mind to make deliberate
practice even more effective. "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches
itself."

~~~
dominotw
Right. I think I get the basic idea of it. What bothers is me is who is this
'other me' telling me what to do. Is the 'other me' the real me, if not why
can't I figure out myself when to stop eating why do I need another
overbearing character watching my every move and telling me what to do.

It is quite disconcerting that we have taken this kind of dualistic thinking
to be the norm and assumed that thats how things are and that we are doomed to
live in a perpetual conflict within ourselves. We have made great scientific
discoveries and have spent enormous amounts of energy in learning how the
world works. But we have spent so little time on studying ourselves as to why
we behave in certain way. All we have come up with so far are conflict
inducing strategies like mindfulness.

~~~
Jtsummers
We have habits, unconscious things we do, learned on our own or from others.
We eat when we get stressed, but it's not deliberate. (Or whatever it is for
you.) We have to change the way we've wired our minds to break these
behaviors. So if you find yourself constantly knocking yourself down (in self-
effacing jokes, internal monologue, whatever), you need to become aware of
your action, and deliberately alter your behavior until it sticks. If you eat
too much, you have to be aware of yourself at the dinner table, and learn to
push things away or ask for a to-go box. Eventually these deliberate changes
will (hopefully) stick and become the new, desired, habits and behaviors.

So it's not two yous. It's one you, but one part is conscious and one part is
unconscious (or non-deliberate, habit-based, instinct-based, etc.). The
objective is to bring yourself to awareness of your actions, recognize that
you are doing something, perhaps actually understand why, and then change it.

------
peter303
George Nash (Beautiful Mind) stopped doing anything significant after they
zapped his brain. I wouldnt gamble on this.

~~~
gjm11
1\. John Nash, not George.

2\. So far as I can tell, Nash was never treated with electroconvulsive
therapy.

3\. ECT has scarcely anything in common with tDCS.

4\. Nash did all his best work before he became schizophrenic. I would be more
inclined to blame the _major mental illness_ for any falloff in the quantity
or quality of his output, rather than the treatment he received for it.

