From the do-taze-me-bro dept.
An article over at Medical Xpress details study results published on 4 October, 2016 in Nature Scientific Reports [Full paper], from a group of neuroscientists investigating the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), using MRI imaging.
From the Medical Xpress article:
Rather than taking medication, a growing number of people who suffer from chronic pain, epilepsy and drug cravings are zapping their skulls in the hopes that a weak electric current will jolt them back to health.
This brain hacking—"transcranial direct current stimulation" (tDCS)—is used to treat neurological and psychiatric symptoms. A do-it-yourself community has sprouted on Reddit, providing unconventional tips for how to use a weak electric current to treat everything from depression to schizophrenia. People are even using commercial tDCS equipment to improve their gaming ability. But tDCS is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and scientists are split on its efficacy, with some calling it quackery and bad science.
Here's the issue: Until now, scientists have been unable to look under the hood of this do-it-yourself therapeutic technique to understand what is happening. Danny JJ Wang, a professor of neurology at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, said his team is the first to develop an MRI method whereby the magnetic fields induced by tDCS currents can be visualized in living humans. Their results were published Oct. 4 in Scientific Reports, a Nature Publishing Group journal.
"Although this therapy is taking off at the grassroots level and in academia [with an exponential increase in publications], evidence that tDCS does what is being promised is not conclusive," said Wang, the study's senior author. "Scientists don't yet understand the mechanisms at work, which prevents the FDA from regulating the therapy. Our study is the first step to experimentally map the tDCS currents in the brain and to provide solid data so researchers can develop science-based treatment."
People in antiquity used electric fish to zap away headaches, but tDCS, as it is now known, was introduced in 2000, said Mayank Jog, study lead author and a graduate student conducting research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
"Since then, this noninvasive, easy-to-use, low-cost technology has been shown to improve cognition as well as treat clinical symptoms," Jog said.
So what say you, Soylentils? Ready to cut that electrical cord, plug it into the wall and stick it in your ear? I'm sure there are quite a few who'd be willing to assist!
Related Stories
HRL Laboratories (a research center owned by General Motors and Boeing) has found that transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) can improve learning:
Done in collaboration with McGill University in Montreal and Soterix Medical in New York, the study was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)'s Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program. Published October 12, 2017, in the journal Current Biology, tDCS in animals showed learning accelerated by about 40% when given 2 mA noninvasively to the prefrontal cortex without increased neuronal firing. This study showed it was modulated connectivity between brain areas, not neuron firing rates, that accounted for the increased learning speed.
The behavioral task in this experiment was associative learning. The macaques had to learn arbitrary associations between a visual stimulus and a location where they would get a reward—a visual foraging task. The initial foraging trials took about 15 seconds, and once the animal learned the location of the reward, it took approximately 2 seconds to recall and find the target. Subjects in the control condition required an average of 22 trials to learn to obtain the reward right way[sic]. With tDCS they required an average of 12 trials.
"In this experiment we targeted the prefrontal cortex with individualized non-invasive stimulation montages," said Dr. Praveen Pilly, HRL's principal investigator on the study. "That is the region that controls many executive functions including decision-making, cognitive control, and contextual memory retrieval. It is connected to almost all the other cortical areas of the brain, and stimulating it has widespread effects. It is also the target of choice in most published behavioral enhancement studies and case studies with transcranial stimulation. We placed the tDCS electrodes on the scalp in both our control and stimulation conditions. The behavioral effect was revealed when they learned to find the reward faster."
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Facilitates Associative Learning and Alters Functional Connectivity in the Primate Brain (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.020) (DX)
Previously: Cognitive Enhancement May Not be All It's Cracked Up To Be.
Zapping Your Brain may Reduce Depression, Ease Pain
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:20PM
The DC in "transcranial direct current stimulation" (tDCS) is not what comes out of the wall.
tACS maybe?
If we sing a slaying song tonight, what tools will be used for the slaying?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:28PM
In other news, this article reminded me to submit this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/05/its-not-in-your-head-striking-new-study-links-birth-control-to-depression/ [washingtonpost.com]
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2552796 [jamanetwork.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday October 06 2016, @06:04AM
These guys are doing something similar. [nexalin.com] Theirs is a special AC waveform. No DC.
( Note: I would warn one about continuous application of DC to living tissue: Electrolysis. It will cause a migration of ions of one charge under one pad, and the other charge under the other pad. The concentration of these ions will interact with the living tissue and make a nasty rash. Personal experience here... learned that one empirically while trying to build an electronic muscle stimulator/back pain reliever about 30 years ago. I did build the stimulator, and it worked well, but I did learn a lot about putting an inductor in the line and using inductive kickback to make the pulse, and capacitively coupling the pulse to the pad. It took a couple of pulse-forming LC networks to shape the kickback spike into something that was not painful. I noted the thing worked great for pain relief, but I could not discuss it where I worked, as my co-workers thought it was hilarious I was deliberately shocking myself and I brought a lot of mirth down on myself at the workplace by even bringing the subject up. It is still my belief the thing worked for the same reason massaging and rubbing a painful area works.... it stimulates all of the receptors so that the resultant "noise" drowns out the pain reception. I found some frequencies/waveforms are quite pleasant to the feel. Of course, today, this concept is all over the place, and generated from "class-D" methods instead of the primitive LC pulse shapers I was using. If I had known how to properly present this to management thirty years ago, I believe we would have been all filthy rich today. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:38PM
> to treat everything from depression to schizophrenia
Yup, it's bogus...
On the other hand, if Darwin fans want to zap their own brain with DYI devices, go ahead! Need my address for your will? Leave it in a separate building, or at least a fireproof safe.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:48PM
zap their own brain with DYI devices
Do Yourself In devices?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:34PM
After I zapped myself hard, I became a creationist fan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @11:39PM
Peer reviewed citation please...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Francis on Thursday October 06 2016, @12:48AM
The burden of proof here is on the individuals who claim this is safe and effective. Just like it is when people recommend eating random things in order to cure things.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 06 2016, @12:42AM
There's a great deal of potential here, but I'm extremely skeptical that there's sufficient research to warrant doing any of this in a clinical setting, let alone without any medical training or support.
Zapping the brain definitely has an effect, but zapping the brain with the necessary precision and targeting to achieve a predictable outcome isn't here yet. The closest they've gotten is ECT and that has some rather significant side effects, such as disruption to memory.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:31PM
Hey, it's not bogus! I'm betting this will treat both Baldness and Impotence. I expect I can sell it to Steve Ballmer on that basis.
If we sing a slaying song tonight, what tools will be used for the slaying?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by g2 In The Desert on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:52PM
This is nothing but warmed over Electro Shock Therapy from the 50's. Think Cuckoo's Nest.
Is there really any scientific data suggesting the nut jobs welding probes in the 50's were on the right track?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:04PM
There may be [wikipedia.org].
A meta-analysis on the effectiveness of ECT in unipolar and bipolar depression was conducted in 2012. Results indicated that although patients with unipolar depression and bipolar depression responded to other medical treatments very differently, both groups responded equally well to ECT. Overall remission rate for patients given a round of ECT treatment was 51.5% for those with unipolar depression and 50.9% for those with bipolar depression….
In 2008, a meta-analytic review paper found in terms of efficacy, "a significant superiority of ECT in all comparisons: ECT versus simulated ECT, ECT versus placebo, ECT versus antidepressants in general, ECT versus TCAs and ECT versus MAOIs…."
Compared with transcranial magnetic stimulation for people with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, ECT relieves depression about twice as well, reducing the score on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression by about 15 points, while TMS reduced it by 9 points.
Keep in mind that there are memory-related side-effects as Wikipedia notes.
A lot of people think of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) as some kind torture technique. That's simply not true. The mechanism that results in relief from depression isn't well understood, however.
Also, ECT unfortunately can't cure heterosexuality, either, regardless of what religious people wish it did.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:21PM
Whaaaaaaat... yo... pass that blunt
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:55PM
Heteronormative Crusader [tvtropes.org]
(TV Tropes time-suck warning)
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @11:12PM
Found the link I was actually looking for:
Quit flaunting it, straight people! [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:42AM
*holds it in*
*holds it in*
*exhales*
Here you go, man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @11:16PM
Are those remission rates good or bad? What's the baseline? What are the remission rates with simulated ECT and with a placebo? The paper those figures you quoted appears to come from is pay-walled, so I can't read more than the abstract.
I did however find a critical abstract [nih.gov] for it, which wasn't very positive about the quality of the meta-analysis.
Lacking better evidence, I'd take the claims of ECT's effectiveness with a sizeable pinch of salt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @05:52AM
This is all about bridging the gap between electro shock therapy and a time when you will be able to completely control what the brain and body experiences using a brain implant. tDCS is somewhere in the middle.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:53PM
Society is headed straight towards the technocratic byzantine polluted distopia in the film Brazil? no prob! zap your brain so you will be happier about it.
If this procedure works, it will be made mandatory. (no not by decree, by advertisement. You know, the same way you have been assigned your cellular networked telescreen)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:22PM
Some people seem to have a penchant for trying anything that goes against the grain of medical science. If I were to hazard a guess it would be that even the best treatments we have for the aforementioned disorders aren't perfect and don't always work, which cultivates a a deep mistrust of conventional medicine. So, instead of accepting these imperfections in medicine, some try treatments for which there is even less evidence of their efficacy, perhaps out of desperation, but more likely out of ignorance. Some may even think there is a conspiracy among the medical profession to suppress these untested but, in their eyes, revolutionary treatments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:01AM
Aren't perfect and don't always work? Many of the most popular treatments aren't even better than placebos! Read their studies. Electric shock therapy does work, for a limited time and with side effects, but its expensive or at least it was expensive. Again, read the studies. Electrotherapy is one of the most effective methods of short-term treatment and it makes sense. Your brain is a electro-chemical machine. You can screw with it from the chemical side or from the electric side.
This isn't against the grain of medical science, it's against the grain of popular opinion and corporate interests. Look back through the history of anything health related except mending physical trauma injuries, you'll find its common for the industry to do multiple complete reversals on recommended treatments. They aren't trustworthy. Hypnotherapy has the highest effective treatment rate for all mental issues with no negative side effects and at a cost affordable by most. What's the popular opinion on that treatment? "It's a scam" despite the research saying the exact opposite. Most of the drugs you hear about are the scams, the treatments you don't hear about are the effective ones. People who use the heavily advertised meds and procedures are the ones acting out of ignorance. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH by reading the actual studies and MAKE SURE TO LOOKUP THE CONFLICTING VIEWPOINT too.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @05:07AM
I'm aware that Electro Convlusive Therapy (ECT) is indicated in certain circumstances. I suffer from schizoaffective disorder and it was once proposed as a treatment option when I was profoundly depressed and nothing else was working. The problem with ECT is that the effects are often temporary and it has a cumulative cognitive dulling effect. At the mental health center where I am an out-patient it is only used as a last resort when all other treatments have failed. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation is a different means of stimulating the brain and according to the article it is still unproven. In my case, the drugs (mostly) work. If I stop taking my medication it is only a matter of time before psychosis sets in. I know this from experience (you can't tell me that Lithium or Bupropion are placebos). The trouble is that psychiatric drugs don't affect everyone equally. Prescribing them is still a black art and a lot of trial and error is involved. I'm a busy guy and I don't have time to read a ton of studies, but I do have a lot of experience to draw on (my own and my mentally ill comrades) in forming my opinions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:24PM
I prefer to use Energizer(tm) batteries, because they just keep going and going. But as to the snarky "criticism" by people who (((know))) things, like doctors and scientists, they just do not know what they are talking about. You see, DC current, because it is telluric or Gaia-based, is much better at suppressing and driving out the thetans in your mind. Alternating current, and aether-based currents like radio waves and radiation you get from standing under powerlines, feeds the thetans since they are not of Gaia, resulting in a "non-clear" state. So the ideal situation is one where you have transcranial inter-rectal stimulation AND at the same time wear a tinfoil hat.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday October 05 2016, @11:47PM
That would make you an electric ass-hat
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @11:58PM
Yep! But just look at the results! I am nearly thetan-free!
said Wang, the study's senior author. "Scientists don't yet understand the mechanisms at work, which prevents the FDA from regulating the therapy."
Yes, thank goodness for those unknown mechanisms hard at work. Unfortunately, I have developed an intolerance for gluten.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @04:05AM
I didn't know "(((know)))" was jewish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @09:32AM
I didn't know "(((know)))" was jewish.
Obviously not, you trolled and caught Nazi! So who is the superior race now, you pale excuse for a human being?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @12:07AM
by 110v a/c, automotive ignition systems, charged capacitors, and TENS units. But the worst one of all was an electronic flash for cameras powered by a couple AA batteries. I took it apart while it was still charged, touched the wrong part, and woke up 4 feet from where I was sitting. All OK, except for the taste of aluminum foil in my mouth for a few hours and a few stains on my underoos.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday October 06 2016, @06:15AM
You got your dose of electroconvulsive shock therapy... betcha you make damm sure the capacitors are discharged before you monkey with them now.
Proven Behaviour Modification!
( eh, done similar things myself, thank God none of them involved a Microwave Oven, as few survive the lesson. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by justinb_76 on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:09PM
but did it cure your depression?
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Friday October 07 2016, @02:11PM
Yeah, they have large capacitors in 'em that need to be discharged safely, i.e. not through your body. A pointless warning now as you've already found out, but thankfully you're still around to tell the tale. Don't try the same thing on a guitar valve amplifier or you might not be so lucky.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Murdoc on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:04AM
Normally my concern these days with the advance of technology is that as it gets more complicated we become more reliant on companies (and to a lesser degree, government, which is supposed to protect us) to not use it to take advantage of consumers. You all know those issues already I'm sure (e.g. most people don't know enough about computers to keep themselves safe from privacy invasion, etc.). But this raises an interesting (and worrying) other side of the coin: as tech advances, it also puts high technology into the hands of individuals, the masses. One could see this as a counter-balance, but what I worry about is the general undercurrent of people not being properly educated in science and technology (whether that is from them thinking that sci/tech is only for people actually in that profession, like learning accounting, or from those in power preferring an uneducated populace that is easier to take advantage of; take your pick), and thus don't know what they are doing with it. There is a much greater chance of them causing harm, to themselves, or others as they gain new and greater powers from cheaper advancing technology like this. Some could be for actual crimes, others using it for self-modification like this trend. I remember one RPG I played had a "Clone-Of-Your-Own" home genetic manipulation kit, complete with generic embryos and gestation chamber, so you could custom-build your own animals. Sure, that could in theory be made safe with the proper safe-guards, but what about home-grown do-it-yourselfers like these tDCS projects? People will one day be able to build this stuff on their own from parts, and the internet will make sure that the plans and how-tos are widely available.
Now I'm not suggesting a halt to technological progress obviously, but I do think that something has to be done culturally, so that anyone that ends up with new technologies has the knowledge and training to use them responsibly. Namely, better science and technology education for starters. I can think of other things too. I don't know, maybe it seems like this should go without saying, but I'm not really seeing it out there right now.
(Score: 2) by ah.clem on Thursday October 06 2016, @01:54AM
I, for one, welcome our new Puppeteer Overlords!
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Thursday October 06 2016, @05:37AM
No no no, we need to switch to "Thanks, Hillary." The transition must be smooth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @03:52AM
Thank you, Larry Niven!
(Score: 2) by ah.clem on Thursday October 06 2016, @05:45PM
Awwww, you gave it away! Oh, well. The Puppeteers Tasp was a wireless droud that could be used from a distance (due to their innate cowardice) to excite the pleasure centers of the recipient's brain. Doing this to someone without their knowledge was known as "making their day". I don't remember which came first, the wired droud or the tasp, but I'm betting the tasp inspired the droud. The Puppeteers were always socially engineering other planet's civilizations, making them docile. I've always loved Larry Niven, not so much his collaborations with the exception of a few with Pournelle. Barnes is pretty much right out. On collaborations, it seems like Niven gets inspired, then bored and the collaborator does most of the writing. Just my opinion.