Is DIY Brainhacking Safe? 183
An anonymous reader writes "My colleague at IEEE Spectrum, Eliza Strickland, looked at the home transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) movement. People looking to boost creativity, or cure depression, are attaching electrodes to their heads using either DIT equipment or rigs from vendors like Foc.us. Advocates believe experimenting with the tech is safe, but a neuroscientist worries about removing the tech from lab safeguards..."
Predictions? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Predictions? (Score:4, Insightful)
I learned how to fix and improve computers through tinkering (which I would consider a form of hacking). What usually would happen is I would try to upgrade something, break my computer, and then spend the next four hours trying to fix it. The problem here is that you would be breaking the 'fixer' with no time to google how to roll back the buggy changes.
Re:Predictions? (Score:4, Interesting)
Edison's Medicine
Georgia Power cocktail
Don't taze me, bro'!
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Some people's brains are broken and there is no known fix. To those people something like this could be potentially attractive. Medical science moves at a glacial pace when you are suffering and the temptation to try pretty much anything that might fix you is high.
It's dumb but it is also human nature to latch on to any sliver of hope.
never above the waist! and don't cross the streams (Score:2)
Plus, everybody knows, the proper pad placement is where the crease of you buttocks joins your thigh.
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I already have bets in on the last words being either "Hold my beer and watch this!" or "What could possibly go wrong?".
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You're using hexadecimal I hope.
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Re: Predictions? (Score:2)
My IQ goes up to eleven.
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IQ tests are [...] not applicable for general usage
Childhood IQ tests is one of the best predictions we have of adult success, in whatever terms we have tried to measure that. They aren't good, but they are better than, say, socio-economic status of the home.
Quite possibly, each and every person is similarly intelligent, only adapted to different environments.
You haven't been teaching much, I can hear. It seems that some people are just faster at understanding and applying information than others. In what environment is it an advantage to be slow to understand new information? Even within the same social strata, there still seem to be quite a spread, which w
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In what environment is it an advantage to be slow to understand new information?
An extreme case, for sure, but: an abusive environment. An environment where learning faster or figuring things out can and often is detrimental to one's safety. An environment where you're forced to be quiet and where you're essentially ignored. This is an environment where being smarter will only help you if you have a means of escape, otherwise it's best to either keep those brains under wraps or to just give in and let the people around you tell you how to live your life, as it's your best chance to avo
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Really? I thought your parents stock portfolio and political connections did that.
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In what environment is it an advantage to be slow to understand new information?
Republican party?
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There's definitely a big range of intelligence across the population, no matter how you try to measure it.
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Next threshold: grateful for getting up in the morning.
Re: Predictions? (Score:2)
If you're into that kind of sci fi, check out Mindkiller by Spider Robinson. The book opens with a burglar finding a woman committing suicide by wireheading when he breaks into her apartment and runs from there. Great book.
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I personally own the TENS device used by Clapton and Richards to alleviate withdraw symptoms, Ive used it recreationally off and on for years. Not even the slightest hint of addiction. Story sounds like attention whoring to me.
Whatever happened to good old fashioned LSD reprogramming? That was the most effective outside force in brainscaping I could think of. Other than that , there is only will to change...
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The DEA happened? And yes, the limited studies that have been done looked quite positive...but again, DEA
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What, have they successfully cut manufacture and use to zero?
The DEA never stopped anything, they may slow it down a bit, every now and then.....
I think its just a matter of culture and trend. There was more acid in the 80s/90s than there was in the 60s.
Itll be back. Leary,Dass,Lilly, some of my favorite researchers.
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The DEA did not stop the production and use of LSD. What they did do was stop reliable production, so you never quite know what you're getting, which is a real damper on scientific experiments. Further, they stop any research on it in the US.
In a rational world, the usefulness of drugs for medical purposes would be determined by experiment, rather than having some legally designated as useless.
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Like you ever knew what you were getting anyway. Usually, it would be some analog, if not the original. /., this was pure Geek debauchery. I think we can agree that as lon
The DEA does bust some. Never get them all. Thinkfully, there is still an underground evident in subculture. Burning man, various Dead-headish music tours, most universities and San Francisco.
Here is an interesting film about people I crossed paths with back in the day, their adventures, their bust, and whats left over. Totally fitting for
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When I buy aspirin, I know what I'm getting. The strength is clearly marked, and I know from clinical testing that it is effective at pain relief, and has certain known side effects. The clinical testing presumably was done by having specific doses of the same exact stuff administered to subjects. This is because aspirin is legal.
If I buy LSD, I don't know what I'm getting. The strength, exact chemical, and other things with it are unknown and mostly unknowable. It isn't possible to do scientific re
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Oh , I see, youre expressing fear over contents.
One thing that will make it seem safer is; there is no poisoning threshold for any amount you would be able to obtain.
Eat all you want, your bod will only process no more than around 250 micrograms. The concern is; would you benefit from that much? Probably not, at first anyway. The big long trip can take more than a weekend and is heavier than most care to deal with.
There is plenty of research out there from monographs to notes to biographical and autobiograp
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Our baseline condition is pretty bad. Out of control appetites, greed, envy, violence, laziness, tribalism, superstition, etc... There's a lot of room to improve our selves via drugs and technology.
We've done this one before... (Score:2)
http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
Go ahead (Score:3, Funny)
Go ahead. Fry your brain. It's not like you're using it or anything. :(
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Go ahead. Fry your brain. It's not like you're using it or anything. :(
I prefer to bake my brain. Apparently baking is better then frying.
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I don't even have a brain. :P
Re:Go ahead (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it would be very hard to fry your brain with a 9v battery, even if you couple it to your head with saline soaked sponges. It'd sting, but it's doubtful you'd be able to endure enough to do serious damage. If you want to exercise an abundance of caution, you could put a 2ma or 5ma fast blow fuse in series with the electrode (yes, they make them that small).
More to the point is *subtle* changes in your brain because you hooked the electrodes up wrong, or overstimulated your brain with long sessions without medical supervision. You could commit a fatal error if you are treating yourself for depression and you connect the device in a way that makes the depression worse.
One thing that's worth noting is tha most if not all the claimed benefits of tDCS can be achieved through exercise. That's worth considering as an alternative brain hacking scheme.
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Seems like overkill to me. I'd say building a simple resistive constant current source would be adequately safe. In fact a simpler circuit built entirely from passive components might even be safer given the unpredictability of homebuilt circuits. Say, two 9v batteries in series with an 20 K Ohm resistor (1 watt for safety), 1 mA panel meter and 2 mA fuse. You short out the leads out before applying them to the electrodes and you should get 0.9 mA.
It's hard to see how a circuit intended to be built b
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This is your brain on electrodes with a side order of bacon! [funnyjunk.com]
"It would have worked if you hadn't stopped me." (Score:2, Redundant)
- E. Venkman
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- Egon Spengler
(obligatory nod to the memory of Harold Ramis)
Go easy on your EBEs (Score:2)
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:4, Funny)
No.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] )
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then the submission after that: "Is Betteridge's law of headlines correct?"
And slashdot's servers react like Mudd's android [youtube.com].
I wonder if beta has paradox absorbing crumple zones?
as long as you have the download code (Score:2)
then just jack in away.
Is this dangerous? (Score:2)
The Terminal Man? (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The inexpensive route (Score:2)
Niven reference (Score:2)
Do you want to be a wirehead
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Those books sucked.
I'm just saving anyone from looking up that authors name, ordering any of his books on amazon and then proceeding to waste a good 40hrs of their lives before realizing he's a terrible author.
No offense if you like him. I like hot-dogs, but I'm not about to claim they're some kind of delicacy. Although, hot dogs could likely write better than Niven, but I digress.
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No offense if you like him. I like hot-dogs, but I'm not about to claim they're some kind of delicacy.
You make Niven sound like a bad writer, when he is merely mediocre. He never, for example, takes extra time to piss on your mind simply because he can. Now, Piers Anthony, he is a bad writer. Actively bad.
And hot dogs can be good without being a delicacy. Or truly fit for human consumption.
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strongly disagree. read lucifer's hammer. it was like 700 pages of introducing this MASSIVE cast of mediocre characters.. most of which are developed and then never heard from again) It's as if they either wanted to write a post-apocalyptic version of Lord of the Rings, but got bored halfway through and decided to wrap it up. Or decided to write the first sci-fi troll novel. I think B is infinitely more likely.
On an aside, I think i finished it.. i'm not sure -- the ending was that underwhelming..
It's called "DIY Brainhacking" (Score:2)
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simple, just use the existing, tried 'n true APIs until the new ones are vetted. I hack on my brain all the time. All the sane kids are doing it!
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i was at the bookstore yesterday and came across the "diy law" section, which sounds equally dubious.
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If these people were sane, they would have some minimum of common sense. They do not have that. Hence it is perfectly safe, as where there is nothing, nothing can get broken...
it saf (Score:2)
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Algernon, is that you?
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Yeah, but who would get that reference out of the blue?
Besides, that mouse was a clever bastard, who knows what he was up to when left alone in the lab?
self-trepanation is the shizznit! (Score:2)
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
I did it last week. Setting up the electrodes was the easy part. The hard part was setting up the electrodes!
No worries (Score:2)
If something were to go wrong you'd know it..
Trepanation (Score:2)
"The most prominent folk theory for the benefits of self-trepanation is offered by Bart Huges, alternatively spelled Bart Hughes and sometimes called "Dr. Bart Hughes", although he is not a doctor but rather a librarian by trade. He was better known for his advocacy of drug use and trepanation and in 1965 he drilled a hole in his own head with a Black and Decker power drill as a publicity stunt. Hughes claims that trepanation increases "brain blood volume" and thereby enhances cerebral metabolism in a manne
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Ummm ... wow, really?
I wonder how many of those they sell.
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Be careful ... (Score:2)
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'Way back in my last year of high school, a buddy of mine's older brother dropped by our "common room", where senior students were allowed to relax during spare periods and after school. The guy was well known for his spectacularly comprehensive use of recreational drugs.
So this guy sees that a chess game is just ending, and challenges the winner (one of our top players, as it happened). He took forever to make his moves, but it became obvious before long that he had the game in the bag. When our class
Back up (Score:3)
Better back up your firmware, just in case this makes you infirm.
Question of safety is moot (Score:2)
The kind of people who actually would have the means, motivation, and wherewithal to do this probably face at least as much risk and danger in their everyday hobbies and activities. (Serious tinkerers and the like who play with electricity, fire, chemicals, metalworking tools, lasers, plasma cutters, etc. day in and day out.)
It's when the technology goes 'As Seen On TV' and Joe Six-Pack can buy himself an "Easy-peasy dew-it-yerself brain-zappery kit" that the question of safety truly becomes relevant.
Is Lasik At Home Safe? (Score:2)
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Ha!
Perhaps the most hilarious thing about that website are the photos of "Dr. Amir Khadim, M.D., Ph.D." with the device... He's wearing glasses!
(Yes, I know. Not all eyesight defects can be corrected by LASIK. Still it's bad publicity as it suggests lack of confidence in the device you are selling – or its effectiveness.)
You don't support our policies? (Score:2)
You don't support our policies?
Don't worry, I'm sure we can change your mind...
This quote says it all (Score:2)
Quote from the article: "Lee’s first plan was to use tDCS to learn German, but when he realized that language-learning would still be a huge time commitment, ..."
How serious can you take someone that thinks learning German is going to take a 10 minutes instead of 10 years because you strap a 9V battery to your head?
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How serious can you take someone that thinks learning German is going to take a 10 minutes instead of 10 years because you strap a 9V battery to your head?
Some people claim to have learned to understand various sorts of mathematics rapidly through the use of LSD, why not electricity? We only have vague notions of how memory or indeed thought actually works, we can only measure which parts of the brain are working so far. Big achievement to be sure, but it's hard to say what might be effective. Which is why it's daft to make yourself a guinea pig. Who knows what you will achieve, regardless of your intent?
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We might not know much about memory, we do know that language learning requires many, correlated changes in the brain. You need to learn to identify German words, their meanings, classes and features, the rules which operate on these classes and their exceptions, and the combination of meanings, plus all kinds of idiomatic, opaque expressions. You cannot expect a bit of electricity to facilitate making those changes to all these different processes and still be "compatible" with each other much faster. And
I'm all for it (Score:2)
As long as foc.us will also sell me a replacement brain if something goes wrong.
Hmmm... let me think. (Score:2)
Is it safe to electrocute your own brain?
This is going to be a bit of a puzzler.
Arrange a tDCS network party for best results! (Score:2)
"My brain? But that's my second favorite organ!" (Score:3)
too close to electroschock therapy (Score:3)
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yep..
if it has any chance of working it probably has some chance of damaging too.
it's just a way to relieve some people out of their money.
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Yeah, well a business that call's itself "foc us" and sells a few dollars(cents?) worth of "simple circuits, and a couple of electrodes" to couch bums for $250 is definitely just out to "relieve some people out of their money."
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I know a few people where it can only be an improvement if they're no longer themselves...
the internet circa 1995 (Score:3)
right? me neither...
problem is, there are tons of people willing to line up to do this...**tons**...and they will all surely blog about it in hopes of getting picked up by mainstream news publications
with this "brain mod" crap I'm getting a bad feeling...
remember back in the early days of the 'web'...say 1995 when AOL was king...we all knew that there was so much more that could be done with the internet but even then, the question w
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I can only envision all the ways the tech could be misused
Don't worry. There'll be a fix for that.
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FTFY
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
With a name like foc.us it's gotta be good. With all the money they saved by not hiring someone to find out if it sounds funny when spoken aloud they added extra safeguards.
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foc.us
So much focus.
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that you have to stop in the middle for moment (for a break).
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True, but that's why it's nice that we have a herd of pioneers willing to try it out and provide us with lots of data. This is an interesting topic, and if people a doing voluntarily to get better at COD, we can learn a lot about how our brain works.
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So what, it can take your brain from New York to like, Texas or Alabama?
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Apples and oranges. They are completely different drugs, used for different reasons and with different side effects. MDMA can cause damage to the brain, acetaminophen can cause damage to the liver.
Far fewer people use their brains than use their liver.
Re: Drugs are probably safer (Score:3)
The generally accepted usage regimen of MDMA is once every three months. That indicates that MDMA is highly disruptive to the normal functioning of the brain. There would be more quantitative studies of MDMA if the stupid government would allow it. But one can look at heavy users of MDMA for a good gut-feeling estimate of the toxicity of MDMA. Other drugs such as LSD and psilocybin are not suspected of being neurotoxic like MDMA possibly is...
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But one can look at heavy users of MDMA for a good gut-feeling estimate of the toxicity of MDMA.
Only if one can stand to see them twitching and doing weird shit with their hands at all times.
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but that would have been back in the bad old days where the government didn't care about us. We have progressed so much since.
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Your wish was once frighteningly true. Dr. Lobotomy [wikipedia.org] used to drive around in his lobotomobile doing lobotomies with an ice pick [wordpress.com].
more light! (Score:2)
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Because there are currently no laws against strapping electrodes to your head. There are laws against dropping LSD.