Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning | Hacker News Reader

Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning

scientificamerican.com

70 pointsmalvosenior9 comments

This is a very interesting preliminary finding, and I promptly shared the article link, with hat tip to Hacker News, among a Facebook private group populated by many neuroscience researchers. But the finding needs a look more replication and refinement,

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

before I'll stick the electrodes over my head. For one thing, I wonder what author neuroscientists who attended the big conference where this finding was briefly reported have had time to dig into the details of how other neuroanatomical models of learning compare to the implicit model here.

It definitely is a very interesting finding, but if it wasn't placebo controlled, then its not really demonstrating anything. Bear in mind that deep brain stimulation is placebo responsive, which suggests that this could be easily too. That being said, the structural changes are quite interesting. I suppose i'll have to wait for the full paper, and there's no mention of sample size in the article either.

"The researchers reported that TDCS gave a six-times baseline boost to the amplitude of a brain wave generated in response to stimulating a sensory nerve in the arm. The boost was not seen when mock TDCS was used, which produced a similar sensation on the scalp, but was ineffective in exciting brain tissue."

This seems to indicate that it was placebo controlled, but I am also interested to see the published paper.

Brain altering experiments conducted by the military on military test subjects... There must be a huge pile of science fiction written on the subject.

To be entirely fair, there's a huge pile of science fiction written about almost anything. That's probably one of the reasons it's my favorite genre.

How do I build or buy it?

http://transcenmentalism.org/OpenStim/tiki-index.php

"Remarkably, MRI brain scans revealed clear structural changes in the brain as soon as five days after TDCS."

Interesting... would love to see a study comparing long term results to neurofeedback (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback).

I'll buy the first baseball cap that has similar EEG electrodes!

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