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Mild Electric Shock To Brain May Boost Spatial Memory
An anonymous reader writes "A mild electrical shock to the brain before learning a new task may enhance memory, researchers reported on Wednesday. A team of neuroscientists demonstrated that electrical stimulation to a critical junction in the brain appeared to boost memory in a few patients with epilepsy, a surprising finding that have implications for Alzheimer's disease treatment."
Randomly flipping bits in binary may fix bugs.
Make sure it has an open API.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
A stab in the arm, prior to learning a new task does enhance memory.
Most people will readily confirm that traumatic events make memories in and around the time of the event very clear and very long lasting.
Also in the news, water is apparently wet!
They're just discovering all kinds of new applications for electroshock therapy these days! It almost feels like 1945 all over again!
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So if I use a shock collar on my kids, not only will I be able to discipline them better, but I'll also be making them smarter.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I guess that Parker and Stone were wrong when they had Cartman suck so bad when singing "Oh Holy Night"...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Should you really let a doctor named "Fried" give you electrical shock treatments?
The portable, memory enhancing electro-shock band is so comfortable, you'll forget you are wearing it.
So if shocking your brain makes your brain get bigger... Does it work if I submit other parts of my body to electric shocks?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I know that when my father was teaching me how to add a new electric receptacle, I sure learned my lesson quickly about grabbing a live wire.
I can tell you for sure that a severe electrical shock boosts my spatial memory! As in, every time I even get near that cabinet, all sphincters clench.
Randle Patrick McMurphy loved it...
hello everybody
This is deep brain stimulation. They're running a constant or alternating current, not producing bursts of electricity or a 'shock'. I've administered the modern, anesthetized, calibrated version of electroshock in my medical training and this procedure described here is also very, very different.
This is much more analogous to overclocking a part of the brain by preferentially stimulating it to work harder. This may be used to improve performance but those applications are still far away. This is most useful as a diagnostic tool or even more likely as a research tool to try to understand what various parts of the brain do.
Then again.... I'm an idiot.....
...... and idiots rule the world....
So we need to start licking 9v batteries?
**May**??
Eventually there will be a study that reveals the improvement of spatial memory for new tasks was due to the electric shock deleting older memories in contiguous 512K blocks.
Stagger out to the fence and hang onto the electrified wire it's the best hangover cure I ever tried. Peeing on the electric fence has the opposite effect.
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
I'm spacey enough!
The effectiveness of this method is amazing when the voltages are ramped up to lethal levels, as long as you' both teach and evaluate before administering the current.
To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be electrocuted in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
let me forget the Astroturf article on the front page of Slashdot trying to generate some revenue off hoodie sales? K thx bye!
Sure enough. One shock and I remembered where the exit was.
Have gnu, will travel.
Shocking the brain makes us smarter? So Harrison Bergeron wasn't aligned with Idiocracy, but against it? Clever, very clever.....
Dr. Peter Venkman.
That ab-tronic "slim down fat" electrical shock belt.. I will so wrap it around my head while I study and put the "superman mode" on when it's crunch-time !
Where can I buy this? Seriously.
I believe it because I have seen the proof. During my school days I had a friend who was just a average student but one day he had a electric shock and after that gradually he did better and better in studies. He performed extremely well in his exams later.
So a little shock to help you remember something new. A bigger shock to make you forget your short term memory (used to "cure" depression"). And a huge shock to make you forget everything (dead).
I thought that he was an astrophysicist.
(yes I misread the title)
...for the brain.
I tried doing this electric shock thing to boost memory, a couple weeks ago, Or was it last year. Wait, might have been 10 years ago.
I seem to recall similar work, that suggested a light electricity flow could help math students' learning.
Now, spatial memory...
Is the two related?
...electric shocks for epileptic brains... brilliant idea, really... may introduce a seizure but hey, at least you now can remember it, right?
Actually wanting to learn something maybe a new concept!! Key word ----------WANT-------------- What did the teacher tell me about again?? I was to busy napping or not giving a shit...... What else can you waste money and time on?? I get what they are trying to do, but come on. I guess all the time and money spent on neuroscientists educations have to result in something..
I got shocked by not shutting the power off to my dining room outlets, I will always remember to shut off the breaker before playing with it..
Quacks.