Electrically Jump Start Your Brain – Seriously
Well, looks like we’re one step closer to having cheat codes for our brains.
Later this week, the National Academies of Science is publishing a paper that shows how stimulating the primary motor cortex helps people better learn challenging tasks involving fine muscle control and vastly outperform other people not being stimulated.
The new approach called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is a step down from past methods but very effective. Electrodes attached to the person’s head run a current directly through the brain, but targeted at specific spots. Although these currents are extremely weak, they reduce the voltage barrier needed for a nerve to fire, so it enhances normal activity.
Depending on where the electrodes are placed and how close that area is to either the anode or cathode, tDCS has been able to induce a variety of effects.
Even on the first day of the tests, the group that was given the electrical stimulation were outperforming the control group by a very large margin.
Check out the article for yourself
So I’m imagining a time when we can dial in the patterns needed to rapidly learn and perform any task we need to do. Speed up reaction time or process/analyze information much faster than ever possible.
Maybe they can even wire it up to a classic Nintendo controller like Captain N from back in the day. (how about little up down up down left right left right a b a b select start, anyone?)
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