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?)

Technorati Tags: HealthMind, Mind Hacks

I found an interesting article in The Boston Globe that talks about how our brain is effected by our interactions with urban environments.  New research is showing the benefits of exposing the mind to more natural environments.

They are reporting that studies show such results as:

1. Hospital patients recovering faster when they can see trees from their rooms.
2. People focus better when their apartment windows overlook grass and gardens.
3. Less domestic violence in a apartments with more plants and greenery.

Thats not to say that you should sell your apartment and go live in the wilderness survivor style. It just means that you need to expose your mind to more nature, because being in urban environments doesn’t dull your mind, but being in more natural settings definitely sharpens it. These same effects have been shown by just having people look at photos of urban and natural environments. Which is in line with how mirror neurons work, which shows the mind can still experience all the sensations it would have performing an action, by just watching a video or photo. Interestingly not all nature landscapes and settings are beneficial to the mind. Desert Savannah like landscapes where there is little trees and wildlife are the least beneficial.

This would also make sense, since areas with trees have the higher oxygen levels that your brain craves. Schizophrenia has been shown to be much more prevalent in urban environments. But its not know what part of urban living increases the risk factor of someone having schizophrenia. Go check out the article “How The City Hurts Your Brain… And What You Can Do About It” and then go outside and get back to nature.

Technorati Tags: oxygen

One of the benefits of building your mind is the ability to remember more information it can be useful to be able to remember lists of items and specific dates of events. However your mind isn’t supposed to just be stuffed with more and more useless information, that not necessarily the best use of your increased mental abilities.  One of my favorite stories that illustrates this can be found in Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”. Here is the excerpt.

“Henry Ford, the automobile business mogul, brought suit against the Chicago Tribune, charging that newspaper with libelous publication of statements concerning him, one of which was the statement that Ford was “an ignoramus, an ignorant pacifist,” and so on. That was during World War I.

In the courtroom, the attorneys for Tribune undertook to prove that their statements were correct, that he was ignorant, and with this objective in mind, they catechized and cross-examined him on many subjects.

One question thrown at Ford was: “How many soldiers did the British send to subdue the rebellion in the colonies in 1776?” However, with a dry grin on his face, Ford nonchallantly replied: “I do not know just how many, but I have heard that it was a lot more than ever went back.”

This reply threw the courtroom into loud laughter from the jury, courtroom spectators, and even the depressed attorney who had asked the question. This line of cross-examination was prolonged for more than an hour, with Ford remaining perfectly calm. At the end, however, he was tired of it and in reply to a question which was particularly obnoxious and degrading, the business magnate straightened himself up, pointed his finger at the questioning attorney and retorted: “If I should really wish to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the others you have been asking, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push buttons hanging over my desk and, by placing my finger on the right button, I could call in men who could give me the correct answers to all the questions you have asked and others that you haven’t the intelligence to ask or to answer. Now, will you kindly tell me why I should bother about filling my head with a lot of useless details in order to answer every foolish question that anyone may ask, when I have able men all around me who can supply me with all the facts I want when I call for them?”

There was graveyard silence in the courtroom. The questioning attorney’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide. The judge leaned forward from the bench and gazed in Mr. Ford’s direction. Many of the jury awoke and looked around as if they heard an explosion, which they actually had.

Readers, Henry Ford’s answer proved to all who had the intelligence to accept the proof that true education means mind development, not merely the gathering and classifying of knowledge. Ford could not, in all probability, have named the America’s state capitals, but he could have, and in fact had gathered the capital with which to turn many wheels within every state in the union.”

That is really powerful way of thinking about how to use your mind. Go out and be more creative, think differently, innovate, modify and hack your world. And to Quote another one of my favorite minds,

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  — Albert Einstein.

Technorati Tags: Napoleon Hill