Give Your Brain A Boost

jdray writes "This story covers research into increasing cognitive function by passing small currents through the frontal cortex. It won't be long before everyone is wearing little battery-operated headbands to work every day. Maybe the'll be the next great fashion statement in singles bars, where increased cognition would be a welcome change."

Comments

Coming to an office near you.

[dickeya]

With the amount of current required to do this, 1/500th of an amp, why not start instituting it in the office space? A 20% increase in vocabulary performance could be quite beneficial in a number of occupations. This is, of course, that they prove it's not the brain equivalent of slow roasting a turkey.

scientific ethics?

[my_fake_account]

"But once she had convinced them that the current was harmless, Iyer says, recruitment was not a problem."

It's an experiment-- she really didn't know that it was going to be harmless-- she hypothesized that it would be. It could just as easily caused permanent cognitive function loss.

couple of comments on this

[austad]

Did they take two groups of 50, or did they do all people first with no current, and then with current? Because if it's the second option, the people had time to think about what they were doing and to mentally prepare for it. Poor experiments yield crappy results. What they need to do is get two groups of 1000 people and do one with current, and one without, and analyze the stats to see if it makes a difference.

This reminds me of the now defunct Museum of Questionable Medical devices that used to exist near downtown Minneapolis. They had this thing on the counter with two metal handles. You insert a nickel, and are treated to a soothing electrical shock which is supposed to heal any ailments you may have. I dropped a nickel in, grabbed the handles, and it almost knocked me on my ass. I've been shocked by 120v line voltage before, and it felt identical. The guy behind the counter was laughing his ass off, and he said "you should see some people. It drops them to the floor and they cry."

In any case, if this whole voltage across your head thing works, the current is low enough to where it could probably be done via an implant which wouldn't need to be replaced very often. Of course, now that this came out, it's only a matter of time before we see Darwin candidates using TENS devices and other things to make them smarter. Which might arguably work since they'd only do it once.

Re:"trying this at home"

[anonymous cowherd (m]

I wonder if this would work better while wearing a tinfoil hat...