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Brain-Zapping Gadgets Need Regulation, Say Scientists (ieee.org)
the_newsbeagle writes: You can now buy gadgets online that send electric current through your scalp to stimulate your brain. Why would you want to do that? Because the easy technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is being investigated as a treatment for depression, a rehab aid for stroke patients, a learning enhancer for healthy people, and for many other neuropsychiatric applications.
However, the technique is so new that companies selling brain-zapping gadgets aren't bound by any regulations, and experts are worried that consumers will end up buying devices that aren't safe or simply aren't effective. So scientists and some manufacturers recently got together to discuss the scope of the problem, and what can be done about it.
Earlier IEEE reported that "Professional basketball, baseball, and American football teams are also experimenting with it," adding that some Olympic athletes, including sprinters and swimmers, even used a premarket version of one brain-zapping device to prepare for the Olympics in Rio.
However, the technique is so new that companies selling brain-zapping gadgets aren't bound by any regulations, and experts are worried that consumers will end up buying devices that aren't safe or simply aren't effective. So scientists and some manufacturers recently got together to discuss the scope of the problem, and what can be done about it.
Earlier IEEE reported that "Professional basketball, baseball, and American football teams are also experimenting with it," adding that some Olympic athletes, including sprinters and swimmers, even used a premarket version of one brain-zapping device to prepare for the Olympics in Rio.
Worries about safety, and actual danger are not the same thing.
People sneaking into Home Depot to treppan themselves has gotten to be a real problem so they had to lock up all the drills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They're perfectly safe. I know because I can hardly smell my burning scalp anymore after taking enough Zicam.
And certainly not some simple studies done by private organizations a la Consumer Reports.
nutrition for depression
You can go buy alcohol, that kills brain cells, but also kills your liver. We're in the process of legalizing MJ and that definitely kills brain cells, but is worse than cigarettes for your lungs. The droud (Ringworld series by Larry Niven, direct electrical stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain) is the logical progression. Those who want to check out of reality can do so for pennies a day and their bodies stay perfectly healthy to be used as organ farms later on to pay for the cost of their living expenses.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
One side of me says let Darwinism work its magic, but another side doesn't want to share roads with a guy having an IQ of 25.
Table-ized A.I.
When I shock my brain, I don't use little piss-ant gadgets bought off the internet, I go to the hospital and get a doctor to use some REAL voltage.
Good morning!
People sneaking into Home Depot to treppan themselves has gotten to be a real problem so they had to lock up all the drills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Perhaps the real problem here is the fact that society has made the concept of privacy a crime (to include any shred of medical privacy), so have fun when your IoT-enabled, cloud-driven, 21st Century electric treppan sells your soul online.
If the government can use our smartphones to monitor us, certainly they can use IoT devices to control us?
A friend of mine tried one of these zappers, nearly got himself lobotomized.
Don't fuck with your brain, pal. It ain't worth it!
People sneaking into Home Depot to treppan themselves has gotten to be a real problem so they had to lock up all the drills.
That is a silly overreaction. Instead of locking up the drills, they could have just locked up the forstner bits.
When you add needless regulations over irrational fears you end up with monopolies in the market. In most cases the companies in the market are getting together to propose regulations in order to put up barriers to entry for would be competitors. While there may end up being crappy products on the market there are better systems (consumer review organizations, and similar) that could be put together to deal with these sorts of issues. People should take responsibility for themselves rather than rely on costly solution from government to solve problems that don't even really exist and are merely FUD propagated in most cases by the industries themselves. For really crappy products that actually kill people there are already laws on the books to go after them. We don't need more costly regulations that increase prices and create monopolies, duopolies, and similar.
Worries about safety, and actual danger are not the same thing.
"Worries about safety" is not the real issue. The real issue is control and money. Doctors see informed patients as a big threat, and are trying hard to position themselves as gatekeepers to treatment, so they can collect tolls.
To add to the OP, consider:
Brain-zapping devices are reasonably safe to use right now. There have been no highly-publicised reports of death or injury from using them, there's lots of anecdotal evidence for the benefits, and generally it's not a public health problem.
I would peg the danger level of these devices as about the same as supplements. You can destroy your liver or kidneys from supplements, and you might get side-effects (such as heart palpitations), but it's highly unlikely,
It took the FDA 30 years to ban antimicrobial additives to soaps, due to lack of evidence that they work and concerns about safety.
I agree that there is a modicum of risk when casual hackers build these devices, but given the lack of any evidence of danger, we could probably allow companies to sell these without a lot of regulation so long as they don't make any unsubstantiated claims and have appropriate warnings.
For example, cigarettes are still sold, with appropriate warnings and much research to show that they are dangerous.
And on the flip side, we are seeing an enormous amount of ad-hoc experimentation happening here.
Since there's no obvious danger, why bother regulating them?
People sneaking into Home Depot to treppan themselves has gotten to be a real problem so they had to lock up all the drills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Perhaps the real problem here is the fact that society has made the concept of privacy a crime (to include any shred of medical privacy), so have fun when your IoT-enabled, cloud-driven, 21st Century electric treppan sells your soul online.
Well, they can sell my soul! Hint: I don't have one (nor does anyone else).
Make it mandatory to label them with a picture of Charles Darwin.
If you don't get the reference and you fry your brain it's no great loss.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This sounds more convenient than the extract of feline pineal gland that I'm currently experimenting with. Cats are crazy hard to catch in numbers.
My wife has a Cefaly for migraines, which apparently does help at least somewhat. That's perhaps notable because there actually is a version that's FDA approved, though that may just mean that they decided it wasn't going to cook your brain.
fencepost
just a little off
In the United States, any device that offers a medical treatment or claims to have positive medical effects would already fall under FDA regulations via the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. They sort things into a bunch of different classes that determine the degree of risk and regulatory burden; anything that passes electricity into your head is probably going to need a full 510(k) registration.
Software Shouldn't Suck
E-mail: frank at jacquette dot spamless com (remove the spamless!)
And let the dumb die.
shocking people with electricity imagining it would cure all manner of ills has been done in centuries past, and so the merry-go-round of stupidity comes full circle again. not quite as bad as sticking radium up a kid's nose to fix sinus problems (and thereby killing a bunch of tissue at the least and causing cancer later in life at the worse...), not quite as harmless as putting magnets in bandages...
Stupid or excessive regulation bad, vote 3rd party!
I went to a sleep test ordered by my doctor and I believe they used electronic stimulation also. It occurred over a year ago. The receptionist just shoved papers at me to sign while smiling innocently, saying they were "just routine," and I signed them without reading them thinking I was having just a sleep test. But, when they tested the electrodes they attached to my head and body I noticed that my calf leg twitched a couple of times. I knew immediately that they were testing OUTPUT, NOT INPUT. But I was exhausted and didn't mention it. I was an electronic brain stimulation Test subject apparently. The sleep test lasted overnight and then they bums rushed me out the door still strangely very groggy. For the next two days I was EXTREMELY irritated. I mean MURDEROUSLY irritated. I felt that if the right situation came along something violent would have happened. I had never felt that irritated before in my life. Fortunately, nothing came up that set off the rage and I was myself again. I believe, based on my one experience that this treatment applied to the wrong psychology could lead to violent acts.
E Proelio Veritas.
If you're sneaking into Home Depot for a bit of trepanning; I doubt you'd bother to go for the forstner bits ;)
I do!
Fun fact, the inventor of direct trans-cranial stimulation was in the same cybernetics club as Alan Turing at Cambridge.
Reportedly the first applications were only by devotees as it hurt like a ... and one hapless subject (also a researcher) fainted! The experimenters were dismayed as when the subject fell over he threatened to pull the lab apparatus with him, and that could have broken it as it was experimental, i.e. a hodgepodge of thrown together bits; not "patient proof". They went for the gear to stop it from hitting the floor, letting their friend take the fall instead! (Us fellow geeks could surely relate...)
It fell by the wayside as magnetic stimulation was invented, so it's interesting to see it come to the fore again.
Stefan Axelsson
It's odd to see transcranial direct current stimulation instead of transcranial magnetic stimulation. Why would you rather have a current pass through your scalp instead of a magnetic field? It feels like the infomercial for the abdominal electrode belt that would give you a six-pack. This is a step backwards towards cheap electrodes that are easily marketed instead of forward toward TMS that can stimulate a wider variety of areas without mildly cooking your scalp.
Move along, no sig to see here.