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A 9V Battery To Your Brain Can Improve Your Gaming
autospa writes with an intriguing story found at Nature about direct electrical stimulation's effect on the brain. By applying low levels of electrical current to different parts of the brain via electrodes placed on the scalp, University of New Mexico researchers claim to have documented some significant changes in brain activity, which vary depending on the part of the brain targeted. Gamers, take note: in one experiment in which volunteers were recorded while playing a video war game, "those receiving 2 milliamps to the scalp (about one-five-hundredth the amount drawn by a 100-watt light bulb) showed twice as much improvement in the game after a short amount of training as those receiving one-twentieth the amount of current." The idea of affecting the brain by electric stimulation isn't new; but the battery-powered, non-invasive variety naturally leads some people to consider rolling their own.
Sod computer gaming. My first through when reading this was "can I fit it inside my race helmet and improve my performance in real life?"
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Is that the preferred way of saying percentages in the US?
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
I think that the good old electroshock is seeing a renaissance these days.
Maybe smaller, more targeted currents will be helpful for depression.
I don't care about improving my "gaming", but I would not mind some help with my depression that would not involve fucking up my brain chemistry.
If 9V is good, 90V must be ten times as good!
An alligator clip on each ear and plug into the wall! Score x1000!
Wear gloves, though. You don't want any of the juice to leak into your computer.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Guess we will start seeing this along with the prescription spam emails... And stories of some kid with seizures because they actually made/used such a contraption.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I've found having a loaded gun and the potential for someone shooting you improves real world performance.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
500 times 2mA is 1A. 100W is only ~1A because US line current is around 110-120 volts (W = V X A). 2mA could be any number of watts, depending on the voltage. In order for 2mA to be 1/500 of 100W, it assumes a 1V signal (1V x 2mA = 2mW). If they're using 10V, it would be a 20mW, or 1/50th of a 100W bulb.
Bad science reporting strikes again! How big are those electrodes, measured in school bues?
Maybe they'll reach 400 Actions Per Minute with this.
The benefit of these mental stimulation devices will be maximized if you use my special synergistic low oxygen pure copper cables, which ensure that the feng shui energy flow in the yin direction and will not cause eddies in the yang.
Let me get my thinking cap.
ZZZZZzzzzzzzap!
http://wireheading.com/wirehead.html
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
You want a hyped up, aggressive gamer? Take that approach instead . . . he will vanquish everyone in every game . . . but he might kill you, as well.
9 volts to the scalp? What a puny plan! Go for the full stuff, out of the socket in the wall, right on the family jewels!
It might even work to get that son out of the basement . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Good point. I don't think we understand enough about the electrical operation of the brain to be jumping for this. If I had to make a comparison, we can turn up the clock rate on an oscillator, but it doesn't mean that the device relying on the clock can handle it without some strange, sudden and premature failure.
Releasing oxygen & hydrogen. Just watch out so your head doesn't explode.
Can I plug the battery in to my tin foil hat directly, or will I need some sort of adapter?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I'm sorry, but that's just Crazy!
Sure it can make a difference in bran functions.... that's why they always used to use it. But it sure as heck isn't good for you. That's why they banned it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Directly inducing electrical current makes it "easier" for the neurons to fire.
The long-term effects of this would likely dampen normal experiences.
I wonder when the 9V bug/feature will be added for the Valve Anti-Cheat System..
Brain ! Damnit! Not "bran" Argh... I really need to remember to hit preview before submitting.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm shocked.
Not at this voltage.
shocking.
This needs more cowbell!!!
Another analogy is passing current through frog legs. You can see the effect, and deduce that there's a correlation between the current and the resulting motion, but it doesn't mean you know why or what the underlying mechanism is.
If anything, this seems quite hazardous. Our bodies are designed (ahem -- naturally selected) to defend themselves from much of what's found in nature, which probably doesn't include running even very small amounts of current through our brains. The fact that the brain is encased in a solid shell in mammals should give an idea of how vulnerable it really is. This experiment bypasses that defense and introduces stimuli that you almost certainly won't find in nature. We already know that introducing a tiny amount of arsenic into the bloodstream will kill most (almost all) living things, so we're weary of chemical experimentation, but we haven't been messing around with the brain long enough to know what the effects of electrical stimulation will be.
It could induce brain cancer for all we know. I personally wouldn't go volunteering for this type of experimentation.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
DUH! It's common knowledge that bumping up vCore allows for higher clocks :)
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I was thinking more along the lines of a function-generator. The amount of current isn't the only factor here -- there's also frequency and waveform to take into account. And what about polarity? Also, how to do pick where to pass the current through? We should probably ask this guy.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
I'd hope that the people of slashdot would not be dumb enough to try this. You can KILL yourself with 9 VOLT BATTERY if you go through the skin. I would suggest that the editor note this in the summary. Telling, or even hinting at a crowd, especially tinkerers, to attempt such a thing is negligence. Sorry bloggers, but a "I'm not responsible" tag somewhere on the site doesn't actually make you not responsible, otherwise BP would have done that on all their rigs.
Sig: I stole this sig.
This is old news ( ref. Donald Duck pocket books )
http://duckman.pettho.com/characters/gyro.html
http://img191.imageshack.us/i/vlcsnap2011041713h15m12.png/
Electrically stimulating your five foot tall, doe-eyed, sacks of human waste by taping a 9-volt battery to their newly shaved heads won't have the same effect.
some people are AC, some DC, and some like AC/DC.
.
I do not see all this ending up in a good place.
I seriously wonder why it is being suggested to apply voltage to one's brain?
Am I the only one that thinks 0.002 Watt x 500 does not make 100 Watt?
We have encountered the Borg ... and they are us.
In one study done in a prison, none of the inmates in the test group developed brain cancer after having their heads exposed to a high voltage.
Transcranial direct current stimulation was used in psychiatric care in the 70 or 60s as a treatment to depression, it later fell into obscurity for the following decades(Like psychadelic research, bacteriophage research and whatever else that's only being rediscovered now), no negative effects noticed then. No negative effects found in later studies either. It's not new, it's only a rather dull research subject because you don't need a transcomfublating subluxcapacitor that costs twenty million USD and can grant you a nice profit cow/patent, you need a 9v battery, a pair of electrodes, and electrode gel/salt water, and the effects are not directly perceptible like psychoactive drugs.
Some research from last year showed a temporary 110% improvement in short term memory on the test subjects following ten minutes of stimulation, can't be bothered to dig up the article now though.
As for negative effects some guy argued for microembolization in the brain, however such events have only been detected at higher currents.
As for your frog leg comparison. We know pretty well that Voltage gated sodium channels are responsible for depolarization. And they are voltage activated as the name suggests. That is, we know the underlying mechanism.
Overclocking is generally harmless. It is overvolting your brain. Overclocking likely won't kill something, overvolting will.
I was waiting for someone to interpret it that way. What I meant was that they didn't know what the underlying mechanism was when it was first discovered. Just like they've just now hooked up people to 2mA and observed the effect, but at the moment, they won't be able to tell you why it has that effect.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
None of those (AFAIK) expose the brain to long durations of stimulus. That's why this is inherently different from chemical treatment -- you can turn it on and of in an instant. With drugs, if you introduce chemicals to the bloodstream you have to wait for them to run their course. Here, it may be that the exact length of electrical exposure may have a drastic effect in the long term.
Also, the terms we're talking about here are an oversimplification. I'm guessing (hoping) that they didn't just try DC current, but also different frequencies and waveforms. Once you get into higher frequencies, you get induced magnetic fields which themselves may generate current elsewhere, not to mention parasitic capacitance which may occur (in fact, it definitely *does* occur, but may not be enough to cause any effects).
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
At least you're less likely to have grandkids in the basement after that trick.
Hulda Clark wrote extensively about using positive offset DC electricity (as that found in 9v batteries) to kill parasites and bacteria in the body. THAT is why the improvement in brain activity occurs - positive offset DC electricity disables viruses, kills bacteria, and boosts the immune system in general. Those test subjects had chronic parasitism in the brain (and we all do, look up Toxoplasma, if you've been around cats you most likely have it! And if you've eaten medium-rare meat you've got worms too.)
For more info, see Pg 38 of this PDF (or pg 14 of the book). She explains how she came across this discovery.
http://www.electroherbalism.com/Bioelectronics/HuldaClark/cure.pdf
Of course, most will dismiss this as quackery because the pharmaceutical companies have done a great job at disinformation. The fact that you can get rid of many chronic diseases cheaply at home, without a doctor, poses a HUGE threat to Big Pharma and the health insurance companies. So you will never hear about this on the news, and if you do, it will be presented with fake studies saying it doesn't work.
You can build a zapper for $30, probably less nowadays. Try one and see for yourself. I use one regularly and have not had to go to a doctor in years. The first time you use one, when you see how it really does work, it is like taking the red pill and suddenly realizing how much of a sham our entire media is. They are all in cahoots with Merck and co.
The neurons in your brain have those same voltage gated channels. A positive voltage will nugde them closer to the depolarization treshold. Reversing the current will nudge them away from the depolarization threshold and provide inhibitory effects instead. Which is consistent with what is observed: anodal stimulation have the opposite influence as cathodal.
Am I the only one that was expecting to see this after clicking that link?
http://www.superblogettes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/doc-brown-back-to-the-future-1985.jpg
/agree /sign /bump /bluescreen
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
Fortunately I have a thick skull. Wait...
So somebody needs to come up with a portable way to effectively cool your bio overclocked CoreDuo.
:)
And don't say propeller beanie!
*smack*
While I do find this very interesting and a great thing to research, let's leave this to the people in the lab coats. The last thing I want to see is some kid accidentally electrocuting himself because he wants to do better in call of duty.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/clark.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulda_Regehr_Clark
Note the redundant use of the word "fraudulent".
Quack quack.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
but it doesn't mean that the device relying on the clock can handle it without some strange, sudden and premature failure.
You're assuming that most people haven't already had strange, premature brain failures.
Actually, that explains an awful lot about society....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
In one study done in a prison, none of the inmates in the test group developed brain cancer after having their heads exposed to a high voltage.
No, but it did seriously mess up their hairstyles....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......