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Electrical Stimulation of Brain Trialed As Aid To Treating Stutter (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People who stutter are being given electrical brain stimulation in a clinical trial aimed at improving fluency without the need for grueling speech training. If shown to be effective, the technique -- which involves passing an almost imperceptible current through the brain -- could be routinely offered by speech therapists. The latest treatment, which is combined with fluency training, is not expected to completely cure people of their stutter but could potentially give them more control over it. The brain stimulation, known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), involves strapping electrodes on each temple and then passing a current through the head. The current is weak enough that people are either oblivious to the electrodes being switched on or feel just a slight tingling.
The stimulation increases the firing rate of neurons in certain brain regions, which scientists believe could make it quicker to learn thought patterns associated with fluent speech, and make the effects of training more permanent. In the trial, the 40 participants are asked to speak in time with a metronome, saying one syllable on every beat. During this task, people who stutter typically become completely fluent. "The idea is that if you stimulate them while they're fluent, you're reinforcing that fluent speech process," said Jennifer Chesters, a speech and language researcher at the University of Oxford who is involved in the trial. "And hopefully that will make it more likely for them to use that process in their normal life." Each time a neuron fires in the brain, its connections with neighbouring neurons are strengthened or weakened slightly -- this is how learning occurs. With stimulation, the threshold for neurons firing is lower, so this could accelerate the rewiring that occurs during fluency training.
The stimulation increases the firing rate of neurons in certain brain regions, which scientists believe could make it quicker to learn thought patterns associated with fluent speech, and make the effects of training more permanent. In the trial, the 40 participants are asked to speak in time with a metronome, saying one syllable on every beat. During this task, people who stutter typically become completely fluent. "The idea is that if you stimulate them while they're fluent, you're reinforcing that fluent speech process," said Jennifer Chesters, a speech and language researcher at the University of Oxford who is involved in the trial. "And hopefully that will make it more likely for them to use that process in their normal life." Each time a neuron fires in the brain, its connections with neighbouring neurons are strengthened or weakened slightly -- this is how learning occurs. With stimulation, the threshold for neurons firing is lower, so this could accelerate the rewiring that occurs during fluency training.
As posted by idiot libtard beauhd, stupid idiot retard 19 year old fake "senior editor" moron is too stupid to understand that this garbage has been tried for the better part of a century. It's as modern as kirkbride buildings and hydrotherapy. Ask me what it's like to work at an insane asylum and have to handle these poor saps day in and day out and know the old timers who dealt with this hogwash. Heck, there are a lot of people who had lobotomies and are vegetables to this day. Read about Rose Kennedy reciting the Lord's Prayer while some hipster jammed knitting needles into her brain. It's great! Call it TENS, call it transcranial, call it whatever. When I lived in Cali as a child, one of my classmates got the electrodes to the brain. They messed up with an honest mistake and hit him with milliamperes instead of microamperes. It didn't harm his brain as far as I could tell, but he had PTSD from the experience of how painful it was.
Long story short, this is barbaric as we are talking about "applying some stimulus to a general area" that consists of hundreds of millions of cells. These retarded misleading millenials are going to do some serious harm to society if they keep posting such stories without ANY knowledge of the history. Implant a probe and "target" the current? Great! Now we get it narrowed down to tens of millions of cells having a hurricane passing over them, and we get to slightly damage motor function and memory at the same time.
Enough, BeauHD. You know nothing. You should be an auxiliary to EditorDavid.