Posted 11.04.2010 at 5:31 pm
17 Comments
Neurons
Patrick Hoesly on Flickr
With just 15 minutes of a barely perceptible electric current passed through the brain, scientists at the University of Oxford have succeeded in improving a person’s math abilities with an effect lasting as long as six months. Using a non-invasive method known as transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS), the scientists passed a mild electric current through the skull into the brain’s parietal lobe, where numbers are processed.
Patients were asked to learn new symbols to represent numbers, then, while they were on TDCS, they attempted to organize the numbers. Participants whose brains were being stimulated demonstrated an improved ability to perform the task. The amazing part is that, when tested again six months later, they retained their higher performance level. The current helps the affected nerves to fire more quickly, making it easier to learn information.
The next trials will involve patients who have lower-than-average number processing skills, and Oxford scientists hope to one day develop a device to deliver TDCS. While it may be some time before such brain-zapping is widely administered, this treatment could help the significant portion of the population (nearly 20 percent) with moderate to severe math disability, and possibly those with difficulty in other subjects as well.
* Do not zap your brain with electricity except under professional supervision.
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Can this be developed before finals please?
What about our memory retention, cognition, vision, and abstracts?
@Siromar: Yeah, I'm thinking this could help for the AP calc test next spring... And the thing is, if this lasts for at least six months (they didn't test them after that), then that would be really nice. I doubt its permanent unless it makes synapse formation in the brain easier (which I doubt), but if it is, that would be awesome and could help us ordinary people and those with disabilities.
Iiitt.. d d didnntt w w wwoo orkk
So you're telling me that boosting voltage increases the rapidness of nerves firing? Sounds just like overclocking to me!
@Volt, don't worry too much about calculus. I've come to learn that the difficulty is mostly hype. I hope you can pull a 5 so that they let you skip Calc I, II, and III. That'd save you a whole semester of college.
Just remember it's algebra with a couple of extra steps. :)
scientifically, pretty cool
academically and physiologically, im not so sure
I'm taking my SAT's next month, c'mon! I'll pay top dollar.
This is promising, but I hope that they're using a lot of safeguards.
I'd hate to think that you could become a lightning calculator, but lose the ability to spell your name.
Or that after 2 years, your brain turned to mush.
Anyone remember "Flowers for Algernon"?
"* Do not zap your brain with electricity except under professional supervision."
bwahahaha the fact that they even had to put this tells me they need to develop this thing for the part of the brain that governs common sense.
The thing is we do not know what will happen after ten years. If we stimulate our brain this way and it acts quicker for some time, it can become tired sooner (or can keep improving with excercise). I think there is a need for long term research before something like this is widely used.
This will probably distributed widely in like 10 years. In 10 years I'll be way done high-school and college, nice.
Where can I sign up for this?!
If this becomes mainstream in Highschool and college, there will be a room called "stimulation" room where students relax on a sofa and get zapped for 15 min every 6 months...
Instruction on RED BOLD would say "PUT ON YOUR HEAD" only!
Can we stimulate pleasure centers of the brain or just make them more responsive?
TOUCH IT!!!
It will likely end up like most biological performance boosters - effective in the short term, some long term benefits, but destructive if continued over a long period of time: much like steroids, growth hormone, or adrenilline for working out.
* Do not zap your brain with electricity except under professional supervision.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....
Maybe they zapped their brains while writing this... :0
I wouldn't do this procedure because of the possible risks or side-effects. It seems like there are so many errors that could easily happen. This also seems unethical. It gives people unnatural skills. Ethics stems from christian religion which states that people are called to use those skills given by God to help others. If the skills are not given by God, then it seems like this would be an unethical procedure to undergo.