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Anecdotal, but the people I know who have messed with brain hacking did not do it to treat anxiety but because they believe it makes them better at learning stuff. Precisely because of the effect described in this letter - they read a couple of studies that sound very positive and think this is something they could easily do at home.

I doubt we can get any real numbers about the motivation behind DIY tDCS. But I'm glad this was written.

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I think you're right and for me the numbers skew about 70-30 for people who want an "edge" and people who want a "cure".

Although, (at the risk of being pedantic and playing parlor games) I would say that many of the people seeking to boost their ability to learn and go to such great lengths to do it are also experiencing psychological problems.

Only anecdotal, but it's never been my most successful friends trying to become even moe successful, but rather people who feel like failures or that they're stuck in a rut, or that they're just not cognitively capable of being in this industry at the highest levels on their own.

That coincides with what I have seen, those studies definitely made me and my friends curious. With better evidence I will definitely be trying tDCS for accelerating learning.

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