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Could Electrically Stimulating Criminals' Brains Prevent Crime? (newatlas.com)
future guy shares a report from New Atlas: A new study by a team of international researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Nanyang Technological University suggests that electrically stimulating the prefrontal cortex can reduce the desire to carry out violent antisocial acts by over 50 percent. The research, while undeniably compelling, raises a whole host of confronting ethical questions, not just over the feasibility of actually bringing this technology into our legal system, but whether we should?
The intriguing experiment took 81 healthy adults and split them into two groups. One group received transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for 20 minutes, while the other placebo group received just 30 seconds of current and then nothing for the remaining 19 minutes. Following the electrical stimulation all the participants were presented with two vignettes and asked to rate, from 0 to 10, how likely they would be to behave as the protagonist in the stories. One hypothetical scenario outlined a physical assault, while the other was about sexual assault. The results were fascinating, with participants receiving the tDCS reporting they would be between 47 and 70 percent less likely to carry out the violent acts compared to the blind placebo control.
The intriguing experiment took 81 healthy adults and split them into two groups. One group received transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for 20 minutes, while the other placebo group received just 30 seconds of current and then nothing for the remaining 19 minutes. Following the electrical stimulation all the participants were presented with two vignettes and asked to rate, from 0 to 10, how likely they would be to behave as the protagonist in the stories. One hypothetical scenario outlined a physical assault, while the other was about sexual assault. The results were fascinating, with participants receiving the tDCS reporting they would be between 47 and 70 percent less likely to carry out the violent acts compared to the blind placebo control.
I mean...?
Not sure how they can prove that the result is not that a 30-second shock and 19 mins of boredom didn't cause an uptick in criminal tendencies...
The higher the current the peaceful of the subjects. Over a certain range efectivity is 100%
In a number of Larry Niven sci-fi novels, there are people addicted to brain stimulation, known as "wireheads".
It's called "electric chair". Pump enough watts into the brain and they don't commit crimes anymore. Works like a charm
I couldn't find anywhere in the citation that says or shows "Most violent crimes are committed under the influence..." It says that addicts are more likely to commit crimes than the general population, but you need to look at the base rate and most people are not addicts nor under the influence. The exception seems to be rape/assault on college campus: for sexual assault in which "90% of all cases" the relevant parties are intoxicated at the time; and for assault in general in where "95% of the time" one or the other party is intoxicated.
As I recall, we tried the electroshock therapy thing a long time ago.
It worked, if you defined "worked" to include "turned them into vegetables". Somehow, I doubt that that's what TFA had in mind though....
ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) is used in the 21st century still, for severe depression that does not respond to therapy or medication.
It can and frequently does have side effect of some degree of memory impairment (not "turn into vegetable") ... but that definitely is a better outcome than killing yourself.
The intriguing experiment took 81 healthy adults and split them into two groups.
I hope they labeled the groups 'positive' and 'negative'.
I should hope we can rectify this discrepancy with minimal resistance.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
That's TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), not ECT. In ECT they fit electrodes to your head, then give you a paralytic and trigger a strong seizure. Once the seizure is exhausted, the patient is put on oxygen and monitored until consciousness returns.
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That early 20th century nonsense was to this as a pipebomb is to a shaped charge, or as a fire-axe is to a scalpel.