6 ms·

Neuroscientist here: Just listened to a talk from a reseacher who studied tDCS and tACS in human subjects, and found that IQ scores were actually going down rel

Neuroscientist here: Just listened to a talk from a reseacher who studied tDCS and tACS in human subjects, and found that IQ scores were actually going down relative to control groups. It's absolutely not clear what the appropriate protocols are, and behavioral outcomes could be incredibly sensitive to factors such as 1) electrode placement, 2) stimulation frequency, 3) amplitude, 4) direct or alternating current, etc. On top of that, benefits may come at the cost of other unobserved effects (i.e. faster learning and plasticity, accompanied by faster forgetting, to oversimplify).

amelius 10y ago
> IQ scores were actually going down By how much? If someone can trade severe anxiety for perhaps 5-10 IQ points, then in most cases they will probably sign up.
- nibs 10y ago
  Anxiety and high IQ are linked: http://www.livescience.com/36259-anxiety-linked-high-iq.html http://www.livescience.com/36259-anxiety-linked-high-iq.html so it is possible (I am speculating) that by reducing anxiety, you are reducing IQ. Not everyone wants to be smart, but it is not a decision I would take lightly. I wonder if you could perform the opposite operation, jacking up anxiety and IQ...
  - sbov 10y ago
    Even ignoring the whole "IQ = smart" thing, you can have a lower IQ and still have a high IQ.
    - unimpressive 10y ago
      This was not a well formulated sentence. I'll go ahead and clarify it some for other people reading and scratching their heads: >you can have a lower IQ and still have a high IQ You can lower your IQ and still have a high IQ. I.E going from 130 to 120 is different from going from 100 to 90.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    As someone who has experienced this from the inside let me share with you exactly what is going on... A large part of anxiety is the result of basically running mental simulations of the world with "negative" assumptions. Thus, people who are better at cognitive simulation (i.e. high IQ) are naturally going to have a greater capacity for worry. That being said, if you train your mind to stop running simulations all the time (mindfulness) or just start running simulations with positive assumptions, that anxiety can be eliminated without any impact on intelligence whatsoever.
- artifaxx 10y ago
  Severe anxiety is painful for sure, but doesn't that seem a bit unnecessary? Given there are proven methods for treating anxiety such as medications, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapies, etc without such a high cost.
  - akiselev 10y ago
    They're each "proven" for a relatively small (sometimes overlapping) subset of the population. If anything, psychopharmacology has taught us about the extreme variance in brain chemistries and how difficult the problem is when it comes to treatment. Adding more options is a great thing, as long as there is strong science behind it.
    - artifaxx 10y ago
      As long as people recognize the costs. It is painful to watch people try to solve a problem without looking into the costs of side effects. Because of hyperbolic discounting our brains are often prone to take the easier short term relief despite much higher long term costs.
  - Dr_tldr 10y ago
    Most people who are turning to more extreme and DIY solutions are doing so precisely because they've tried everything else. Outside of a small core of "natural cure" quacks, alternative medicine or "unproven medicine" is the last thing people try after conventional medicine and methods of symptom regulation have failed. Combined, the anxiety treatment options you mentioned are probably about 80-90% effective, which is good from a societal outcomes perspective, but that still leaves millions of people with no other options. Furthermore, many of the FDA approved medications for anxiety have side effects that can be more harmful than the original anxiety, and patients have far less experience coping with those second-order effects. A sufferer of extreme anxiety can have developed a toolset of partially effective coping mechanisms built over decades of experience, but be totally unprepared to deal with the disassociative effects and suicidal thoughts that come from something like Xanax.
    - 10y ago
phkahler 10y ago
>> Neuroscientist here: Just listened to a talk from a reseacher who studied tDCS and tACS in human subjects, and found that IQ scores were actually going down relative to control groups. So really, someone experimenting on their own could be considered more ethical than researchers doing it to other people ;-) This is really an area where having all the data is critical and that publication bias we keep reading about at HN can actually be harmful to people relying on published results. One could say "they shouldn't be doing that", but don't researchers want their results to be used for something, or is it just about publication?
- patall 10y ago
  On the risk that I may sound to much like from the ivory tower but doing something out of the blue is not more ethical (why should it?). But you may end paralyzed and need help by other people, very clever. And the amount people at home can contribute to science is negleable. How much do all the at home car tuners contribute to new cars?! Is it ethical to built new superfast cars on your own ground so you one day can build a faster ambulance? Right, it is not. Just because this kind of research is somewhat new, it does not mean it is easy or you just have to invest sometime to revolutionize the world. Somewhat parallel, people also critize WebMD. Obvoiusly, scientists want their finding to be used but in a reasonable matter, not without context and into the blue. And publications are (among scientists) are rendered not that important (and everyone knows that). It is just that you get judged by them, so you do them and as good as you can. As a software engineer you also at some point finish your project, although you could obtimize on it for ever.
- 2close4comfort 10y ago
  No I think that medical research can now be preformed by anyone. I think that there are going to be great advances that come from this amateur research in the next 5 years and I think it is the next evolution of hacking. People in general are capable of the kind of science required to achieve reproducible results. Most of this "research" is driven by a personal motivation (personal or some one close) where traditional medicine is unable to help. Research is driven by what can be sold afterwards and not the reward of knowledge gained from the results. And even then if knowledge was captured it often be inaccessible to those whom could turn that into a practical application of that science. So really this comes off as questioning the Doctors' absolute authority as masters in their field, and someone with out credentials coming up with just as meaningful results being tossed aside as amateurs not having a full understanding of what they are doing. I would say that in my personal experience that medicine is largely more art than science you rarely find Doctors that are interested in solving the unusual.

amelius 10y ago

> IQ scores were actually going down By how much? If someone can trade severe anxiety for perhaps 5-10 IQ points, then in most cases they will probably sign up.

nibs 10y ago
Anxiety and high IQ are linked: http://www.livescience.com/36259-anxiety-linked-high-iq.html http://www.livescience.com/36259-anxiety-linked-high-iq.html so it is possible (I am speculating) that by reducing anxiety, you are reducing IQ. Not everyone wants to be smart, but it is not a decision I would take lightly. I wonder if you could perform the opposite operation, jacking up anxiety and IQ...
- sbov 10y ago
  Even ignoring the whole "IQ = smart" thing, you can have a lower IQ and still have a high IQ.
  - unimpressive 10y ago
    This was not a well formulated sentence. I'll go ahead and clarify it some for other people reading and scratching their heads: >you can have a lower IQ and still have a high IQ You can lower your IQ and still have a high IQ. I.E going from 130 to 120 is different from going from 100 to 90.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  As someone who has experienced this from the inside let me share with you exactly what is going on... A large part of anxiety is the result of basically running mental simulations of the world with "negative" assumptions. Thus, people who are better at cognitive simulation (i.e. high IQ) are naturally going to have a greater capacity for worry. That being said, if you train your mind to stop running simulations all the time (mindfulness) or just start running simulations with positive assumptions, that anxiety can be eliminated without any impact on intelligence whatsoever.
artifaxx 10y ago
Severe anxiety is painful for sure, but doesn't that seem a bit unnecessary? Given there are proven methods for treating anxiety such as medications, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapies, etc without such a high cost.
- akiselev 10y ago
  They're each "proven" for a relatively small (sometimes overlapping) subset of the population. If anything, psychopharmacology has taught us about the extreme variance in brain chemistries and how difficult the problem is when it comes to treatment. Adding more options is a great thing, as long as there is strong science behind it.
  - artifaxx 10y ago
    As long as people recognize the costs. It is painful to watch people try to solve a problem without looking into the costs of side effects. Because of hyperbolic discounting our brains are often prone to take the easier short term relief despite much higher long term costs.
- Dr_tldr 10y ago
  Most people who are turning to more extreme and DIY solutions are doing so precisely because they've tried everything else. Outside of a small core of "natural cure" quacks, alternative medicine or "unproven medicine" is the last thing people try after conventional medicine and methods of symptom regulation have failed. Combined, the anxiety treatment options you mentioned are probably about 80-90% effective, which is good from a societal outcomes perspective, but that still leaves millions of people with no other options. Furthermore, many of the FDA approved medications for anxiety have side effects that can be more harmful than the original anxiety, and patients have far less experience coping with those second-order effects. A sufferer of extreme anxiety can have developed a toolset of partially effective coping mechanisms built over decades of experience, but be totally unprepared to deal with the disassociative effects and suicidal thoughts that come from something like Xanax.
  - 10y ago

phkahler 10y ago

>> Neuroscientist here: Just listened to a talk from a reseacher who studied tDCS and tACS in human subjects, and found that IQ scores were actually going down relative to control groups. So really, someone experimenting on their own could be considered more ethical than researchers doing it to other people ;-) This is really an area where having all the data is critical and that publication bias we keep reading about at HN can actually be harmful to people relying on published results. One could say "they shouldn't be doing that", but don't researchers want their results to be used for something, or is it just about publication?

patall 10y ago
On the risk that I may sound to much like from the ivory tower but doing something out of the blue is not more ethical (why should it?). But you may end paralyzed and need help by other people, very clever. And the amount people at home can contribute to science is negleable. How much do all the at home car tuners contribute to new cars?! Is it ethical to built new superfast cars on your own ground so you one day can build a faster ambulance? Right, it is not. Just because this kind of research is somewhat new, it does not mean it is easy or you just have to invest sometime to revolutionize the world. Somewhat parallel, people also critize WebMD. Obvoiusly, scientists want their finding to be used but in a reasonable matter, not without context and into the blue. And publications are (among scientists) are rendered not that important (and everyone knows that). It is just that you get judged by them, so you do them and as good as you can. As a software engineer you also at some point finish your project, although you could obtimize on it for ever.
2close4comfort 10y ago
No I think that medical research can now be preformed by anyone. I think that there are going to be great advances that come from this amateur research in the next 5 years and I think it is the next evolution of hacking. People in general are capable of the kind of science required to achieve reproducible results. Most of this "research" is driven by a personal motivation (personal or some one close) where traditional medicine is unable to help. Research is driven by what can be sold afterwards and not the reward of knowledge gained from the results. And even then if knowledge was captured it often be inaccessible to those whom could turn that into a practical application of that science. So really this comes off as questioning the Doctors' absolute authority as masters in their field, and someone with out credentials coming up with just as meaningful results being tossed aside as amateurs not having a full understanding of what they are doing. I would say that in my personal experience that medicine is largely more art than science you rarely find Doctors that are interested in solving the unusual.