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Thync, a Wearable That Zaps Your Brain To Calm You Down or Amp You Up
blottsie sends this first-hand report on how it felt to use a wearable device called Thync, which sends small amounts of electricity into your brain for the purpose of either calming you down or making you feel energized.
While the unit I used isn't the finalized physical version, the best way to describe it is as a two-part device, one of which is fasted to the front of the right side of your temple, and one behind your right ear. It's not a helmet, which is what I absolutely assumed it would be. It's relatively discreet sort of dual patch system ... It didn't... hurt. Hurt isn't the right way to describe it. It felt like a tightness; it felt like the patch was trying to crawl across my skin. But — if you can believe this — in a good way. And while Thync was attached to the right side of my head, occasionally I felt 'tingles' pulling and hitting my brain on the left side and in the middle. I was feeling progressively awake and aware. Granted, I had patches stuck to my head sending gentle vibrations to my brain, so that might have been part of my sudden alertness. But still, after 20 minutes of Thync I just felt... better.
If the devices like this really do end up working, they'd be doing what many recreational drugs do today.
I wonder what this would mean for the war on drugs...
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
I hope they didn't get the idea from Vonnegut; I recall it ending badly for those involved.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Is this the beginning of our new addiction?
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
... using brass and pewter on yourself?
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Day 35 of insomnia. I only slept for 40 minutes today, with Thync turned up to maximum calming for 6 hours. I still managed to get a few hours of work in with alert enhancement on. Could barely focus. Need more sleep.
Hmmm .... suddenly I'm picturing Louis Wu with his droud attached.
I shall pass on this.
Because I'm sure nobody can actually tell you this is safe and have any science to back it up.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Current addiction is the youngest of mankind's sins. At some time in their histories, most of the cultures of human space have seen the habit as a major scourge. It takes users from the labor market and leaves them to die of self-neglect.
Times change. Generations later, these same cultures usually see current addiction as a mixed blessing. Older sins -- alcoholism and drug addiction and compulsive gambling -- cannot compete. People who can be hooked by drugs are happier with the wire. They take longer to die, and they tend not to have children.
It costs almost nothing. An ecstasy peddler can raise the price of the operation, but for what? The user isn't a wirehead until the wire has been embedded in the pleasure center of his brain. Then the peddler has no hold over him, for the user gets his kicks from house current.
And the joy comes pure, with no overtones and no hangover.
-- Larry Niven, "The Ringworld Engineers", 1980
I'm fairly certain that devices that glue to the side of your head and run electrical current through your cranium qualify as "Medical Devices". The whole bit about "not intended to diagnose or treat a health condition" is the sort of loophole that applies to natural supplements, not FDA device regulations.
From the FDA website:
(Among other things) A medical device is "intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals, and which does not achieve any of its primary intended purposes through chemical action within or on the body of man or other animals and which is not dependent upon being metabolized for the achievement of any of its primary intended purposes."
Does it run on Lemons?
Before this, we referred to wearable devices that did this as "hip flasks".
interesting concept, much bandied about, herded for food, etc.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Well I hope diminished spelling isn't one of the side effects. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You've got to get this thing off of me it.. ]]ZZAP[[
It's awesome.
I like it.
It's better than Cats.
(you younglings will have to google for the reference)
See, everything is better, even your minds. You are all much, much better.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Mean Machine
I'll hazard a guess that most of what you know about ECT is from a movie.
On the off chance you have experienced it or know someone who has then you should probably have found a better doctor because the majority of cases where ECT is a treatment choice it is effective (because you don't use it as first line therapy or on a whim) and doesn't turn you into a robot. Hair loss is more common. Medications for depression/anxiety/etc have a higher chance of worse side effects but no one outside of those experiencing them really complains about it.
OMG facts!
Is this something that you are actually concerned about?
OMG facts!
I doubt that this device really works. If it does, I will be shocked.
I used too be abel too, but sinse I turned the currant up too 11 I carnt thync strait enuf too spel my name.
Can't wait!
Thync.... the first zap is free.
Only if we're forced to kill Jedi.
First, there's no way that this is both safe and effective: if it really does deliver enough current to your brain to make any difference, then it's not likely that these folks have done the kind of trials that would be needed to prove that it's safe. If, however, it doesn't deliver any current to your brain (which is pretty likely, since it's hard to get a signal through the skull) then it may be trivially safe, but it can't deliver any of the claimed benefits. Or, maybe they will try to take the same route as herbal supplements, and make no actual claims while selling you (hopefully) an inert product (but this isn't an herbal product, and won't be able to claim coverage under herbal supplement regulations, which means that both the CPSC and the FDA will probably want to get involved).
The "first hand account" of the effects of the device can't be taken seriously: the author knows that the device is supposed to make them feel good, so we should expect the placebo effect to make them think that they feel better, more alert, whatever. The author is entirely too credulous in any case; this is nothing more than press release journalism, and Thynk is nothing more than silicon snake oil.
just a ghost in the machine.
From the FDA website:
(Among other things) A medical device is "intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals, and which does not achieve any of its primary intended purposes through chemical action within or on the body of man or other animals and which is not dependent upon being metabolized for the achievement of any of its primary intended purposes."
At first glance, most winter-wear clothing, the ropes used in 3-legged races, and even police handcuffs fall into this category.
* Winter-wear clothing - it is intended to trap heat, thereby affecting the structure and function of the skin and the body's heat-regulating mechanism.
* Ropes and handcuffs - are intended to temporarily limit or alter the effects of using ones muscles.
So, would the FDA claim that it has the right to regulate these things, even if it chooses not to do so today?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, it is. If you aren't, then you're not paying attention.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
There was a recent Radiolab about this general technique, that's totally worth listening to: http://www.radiolab.org/story/...
(It's also a lot better-written than the summary.)
The idea is that by applying DC voltages to different parts of your skull, you can affect how your brain works. The theory is that the current passing across part of your brain changes how your brain learns from mistakes, messing with the pattern-acquisition feedback. In the story, they specifically concentrated on a woman training in a sniper video game, who was having to identify attackers vs. civilians, and how much it changed her ability to do that, but they also discussed a big underground scene of people trying this out at home for other purposes or just to learn about what happens. They were moving the contact patches around and then trying things to see what they were or weren't good at. One guy doing this found a spot that left him largely blind for several hours afterwards, so it's not all roses, but the people trying language acquisition and finding it much easier both to acquire and, later, post-treatment, to recall, new languages, really got me interested.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
How do you know it's not a placebo effect, though?
From the article:
I felt "tingles" pulling and hitting my brain on the left side and in the middle.
Wrong. The author may have thought that, because the author was a moron. The author felt exactly nothing hitting his brain because the brain has no sensory nerves servicing it. Anything that anyone feels with this device is sensations in the skin or muscles of the skull.
The idea that putting patches on the skin of your head and applying a voltage ends up passing any actual current through your brain is rather ludicrous to anyone who understands anything about electricity and biology. Think of it this way... take a hard boiled egg and peel the shell off it. This is your brain. Now take the egg and put it in a glass of salt water. Then take that glass and wrap it in slightly damp leather. Now put electrodes on either side of that package. How much electricity do you think is actually passing through the egg?
No, clothing, ropes, and handcuffs are not a "medical device"... none is "intended to affect the structure or function of the body" (unless chosen to be marketed that way)
Clothing that purported to explicitly raise or lower core temperature might, I suppose, in a similar sense that compression socks advertised as improving circulation are. (Although it would not be closely regulated.) Clothing that merely says "keeps you warm", or handcuffs that "lock you tight"? No.
A pair of electrodes that strap to the side of your head, explicitly advertised as changing your mood by directly and actively altering brain function? Clearly a medical device.
I'm sure research into this is ongoing, but we desperately need some better treatments for depression. Anti-psychotics just aren't working. Perhaps it's because the entire industry has started using drugs as a crutch, rather than addressing core problems, and maybe this would end up being the same thing. I dunno.
But as someone who suffers from depression, and has loved ones with serious depression, I would welcome anything that would provide these loved ones with some relief and help them be their normal selves again.
No, the mods got it right this time; I was straight-up trolling. However, I was hoping for +5 Funny. It works for me about half the time.
The only change was that after a few "treatments", I found myself unable to recollect a couple of really basic facts that I knew I knew. After thinking about them for several minutes, the facts came back to me. But it made me wonder if the electric current wasn't zapping the learning out of some tiny number of neurons, creating "holes" in my memory. Experiment over.
captcha: electron
Have a patch that doesn't actually apply voltage, but vibrates or something like that. User still feels like he/she is getting some sort of effect, but there's no brain-zapping involved.
"Death By Ecstasy" by Larry Niven is the story, perhaps. Niven writes about "current addicts".
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
I could use this
Was just reading a paperback by Larry Niven with Gil the Arm, who has one case involving wireheads.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Because the Thync device is NOT electrical stimulation, it is transcranial ultrasound.
I'm pretty sure you'll find that meets the definition of 'medical device'.
I think that the thread is getting lost because nerds are arguing over what is or isn't a medical device, which seems sort of tangential to the real question: Is the mood altering effect anything more than the placebo effect? I am a little dubious about the benefits of running a low voltage current into the side of your skull. Wait, lets go back one step further, is there even any medical theory that would suggest that adding additional current to a person's brain would do something positive?
This whole thing sounds like some decided to lick a 9 volt battery and stick it to the side of your head for a healthy mark up charge....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Transmitting specific emotions, not to mention actual control, requires too much accuracy to be effective at a distance. The thing to fear, if fear you must, is that the government will mandate implants that make such control possible. Doubtless many politicians would want such control, and many other people, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFlHGP0VAc (Motels, Total Control)
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Several years ago, there were news reports on an electronic device applied to the legs that provided sexual stimulation ... for women. Thinking about the geometry involved, I suspect the connections would have to be different for a man.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Just imagine the "Potential" .....
Get up!
You're right about the lack of nerves; you're completely wrong about feelings.
It is only in the brain that the term sensation, or feeling, even acquires any objective meaning. When you say to yourself, "I felt that in my fingertip", well, no. The signal came from there, but you felt it in your brain -- as a very specific pattern of electrical activity.
If we induce that same pattern in the brain by other means, you will immediately inform us "I felt that in my fingertip" because that's what feelings are -- they are not the sensor, they are not the signal from the sensor, they are the interpretation of the signal from the sensor, and that is brainops and nothing else.
Consequently, there is nothing particularly unlikely about a claim that inducing electrical signals or enough mechanical energy to directly affect the brain's activity might result in feelings.
Because all feelings are in your head. All of them. Everything else is just signaling.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Still wrong.
You're confusing the lack of ability to locally pick up damage signals within the brain, with the ability of the brain to take a particular pattern of signals and interpret is as signals representing sensory input.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
A lady and I gave that a go. Results were entirely meh.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Currently, there is great resistance to the idea; it is shocking, really, the capacity some people have to induce themselves to go with an amped-up flow.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
tDCS might be worth trying. e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/tdcs
I wanted something like this but it costs $800. And requires a prescription.
"The Relief Band" is not a magnetic bracelet. It is an electrical nerve stimulation device. Nerves respond directly to, and communicate with, electricity. That "The Relief Band" could affect the nervous system with its active electrical stimulation is not in any way doubtful, and is not in the same class as copper or magnetic bracelets, which provide no functionality above the level of placebo.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.