

Adventures in transcranial direct-current stimulation - subnaught
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/electrified

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Strilanc
> _in general, positive current stimulates neural activity while negative
> current inhibits it_

I don't understand how this sentence can be right. Current is positive or
negative w.r.t. a direction, right? Does the brain have some preferred
direction, like positive being "along blood flow" and negative against?

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Jankenstein
Anyone out there tried anything with tDCS and programming - either personally
or as a part of a scientific study?

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uncoder0
I've personally played around with it, but I was not able to tell if the
augmentation was the result of placebo or tcDCS. We have two Neuroscience PhDs
that are advisors for our company and after talking more with them about my
self experimentation I decided it was something I shouldn't be so cavalier
about. tcDCS has measurable effects on plasticity among other things and
plasticity is not always a good thing. They suggested mindfulness meditation
as a much safer and well tested 'Brainhack'.

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mdekkers
Interesting. Do your Neuroscience PhD's suggest this on the basis of "We know
this is bad for you because X" or on the basis of "We don't know enough about
it, and it might be bad for you"

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uncoder0
The latter. Which is what I had honestly expected to hear. They did say it
seems to be totally safe but, not enough longterm data has been gathered.

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mlmonkey
But what are the long-term effects of all this zapping?

