Boosting Your Brain With Batteries

Bifurcati writes "Running a tiny current acrosss your head increases your verbal skills reports Nature News. 103 nervous volunteers received 2 thousandths of an amp and showed a 20% improval in a simple verbal test, compared to a control group (same setup, just no current in the wires). Somebody better buy the politicians a couple of car batteries..."

Comments

Re:Oops

[Ayaress]

It'd be noticeable unless its confined to the brain (since there are no receptors in the brain itself). 2 milliamps is quite a bit, in fact. 6 milliamps at the heart is sufficient to cause loss of muscle control and impair circulation. 4 milliamps will impair your muscle control enough that if it were applied to you, say, in your bathtub, you'd have a hard time getting out. It only takes 60 milliamps at the heart to kill you outright.

Re:I'm sceptical

[Andy_R]

From TFA: "A smaller current of one thousandth of an amp had no effect." - this sounds like a good demonstartion that it's the current not the idea or placebo effect to me.

Presumably to get this study printed in a reputable journal they would have to reach a resonable standard of experimentation, which would require double-blind testing?