5 ms·

I read this here on HN: "using tDCS is like using a sledgehammer to tune a piano".

• brainstim01 7y ago
  Perhaps if it was poorly managed, scoped out, and they blasted the brain with unhealthy amperage of course. In my experience getting full brain scans frequently helps the doctors understand what the brain needs and tDCS supplements the brain.
• mattkrause 7y ago
  No, not really. The electric fields produced by tDCS aren't strong enough to force neurons to fire, even in brain areas very close to the surface/electrode, though they can adjust the timing of neural activity, so that cells fire slightly sooner/later than they might otherwise. My collaborators and I have collected some nice data from awake, behaving monkeys (which have obvious similarities to humans) demonstrating this. - DC + behavior: http://packlab.mcgill.ca/Krause%20et%20al%202017.pdf http://packlab.mcgill.ca/Krause%20et%20al%202017.pdf - AC + deeper structures: http://packlab.mcgill.ca/Krause%20et%20al%202019.pdf http://packlab.mcgill.ca/Krause%20et%20al%202019.pdf There's also a recent preprint replicating our AC results: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/07/09/696344.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/07/09/696...
  • slig 7y ago
    Thanks for the sources!
    • mattkrause 7y ago
      No problem--that's the last few years of my life, so if got any questions, I'd be happy to see if I can answer them.