14 ms·

Non-invasive nerve stimulation boosts learning of foreign language sounds: study

132 points by lelf 6y ago

mjoxley 6y ago
tVNS devices are available to buy at https://vagus.net https://vagus.net
- lvturner 6y ago
  It seems similar devices are available on Amazon for considerably less - any idea why the significant hike in price?
  - mjoxley 6y ago
    Devices on amazon are repurposed tENS devices which control voltage rather than current. tVNS is an emerging area of research and to repeat studies you need to understand the "dosage" which means the current delivered, because the same voltage can result in different currents depending on resistance. The accuracy of the biphasic waveform is also a factor.
    - lvturner 6y ago
      I checked your bio and this is obviously an area you know a great deal about, and one I'm interested in. Do you happen to have any high-level resources on the differences, pros & cons of TENS/tVNS/tDCS/PEMF and why one would be chosen over the other? I'm slowly starting to piece things together, but frankly I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all
      - mjoxley 6y ago
        Thanks. They're all experimental and YMMV. What's exciting with tVNS cf tDCS is that you can use HRV as a measure of efficacy.
wst_ 6y ago
It looks to me like listening practice, really. This is something that people usualy do when they want to learn a new language - we are learning languages not by sitting in class but through immersion. I'm wondering how the results would look like if they'd introduce third group - people who actively watch/listen to Chinese TV shows or podcasts.
qserasera 6y ago
> In the new study, published today in npj Science of Learning, researchers significantly improved the ability of native English speakers to distinguish between Mandarin tones by using precisely timed, non-invasive stimulation of the vagus nerve—the longest of the 12 cranial nerves that connect the brain to the rest of the body. What's more, vagus nerve stimulation allowed research participants to pick up some Mandarin tones twice as quickly. I'd rather have the Chinese learn english than to have a device tickle my cranial nerves.
johnnujler 6y ago
That day when no wants to put any effort into anything will be a fun day in the history of mankind.
- totetsu 6y ago
  Perception of phonetic features which are not markedly meaningful in your native language is a very hard thing. It's not just a matter of putting in effort of not.
kanobo 6y ago
Imagine if scientists could one day figure out how to expand the linguistic critical period into adulthood, we could all be polygots.
- recuter 6y ago
  I'm a polyglot and half my languages were learned as an adult. I really think you just need to immerse yourself for a few months. It feels so so strange to me that the science is apparently still out on that.
  - lgessler 6y ago
    That doesn't change the fact that during the critical period people are muuuuch better at acquiring language than after. Moreover, while people are fairly equal in their ability to acquire a language during the critical period, there is _much_ more variance in ability, all else being equal, after the critical period. The science isn't still out on that.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - recuter 6y ago
      Maybe they are just much better at not being so easily discouraged. And as for the study: By the end of the training, those participants were 13% better on average.. There's a general feeling that people can't learn the sound patterns of a new language in adulthood, but our work historically has shown that's not true for everyone," Chandrasekaran said. "In this study, we are seeing that tVNS reduces those individual differences more than any other intervention I've seen." "In general, people tend to get discouraged by how hard language learning can be, but if you could give someone 13% to 15% better results after their first session, maybe they'd be more likely to want to continue." Sounds like placebo to me. ROMANES EUNT DOMUS.
      - plutonorm 6y ago
valine 6y ago
I’d bet this is useful for a range of memorization tasks other than language learning. I imagine this works because it strengthens the signal to noise ratio by pairing auditory stimulus with vagus nerve stimulation. It’s kind of like how reading something out loud can help you remember it, only in this case it’s like you are reading aloud and listening to someone else read at the same time. I wonder if it could be used to improve reading comprehension. Say you are reading a story, maybe each character has their own waveform, and as you read or listen the stim pulse changes based on who is talking. Or lets say you are reading a math textbook. You could label different variables with different stim pulses, which might make it easier to follow complex logic or minimize the need to re-read different sections.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
arthurcolle 6y ago
Interesting. There's a whole class of these non-invasive field methods to affect human brains - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulat... is another similar idea. I have this cool book that I've recommended before on this site called Neurochronometrics of Mind or something close to that which discusses a lot of the data around these methods. It's super dense but I was interested in trying to build a device 10 years ago and was discouraged by most. Seems like the data points to it potentially yielding a plethora of positive outcomes if done properly, but probably not by a non-clinician. Really interesting stuff. Imagine watching your own brainwaves with a 4096 channel OpenBCI kit (openbci.org iirc) and then engaging in a biofeedback experiment where depending on how you consciously react to seeing your various brainwaves in real-time, the hypothetical combo device also has a series of rTMS tori that each selectively expose you to varying gauss levels (give me some rope here I'm not a mad scientist) that the various parts of your brain get exposed to. Not sure how applicable or useful it might be but it's interesting to think about. A colleague of mine worked on visualization of brain waves for technological applications and told me it was a pretty wild experience to see your brain waves in real-time while also watching them in parallel, so I imagine creating a tight feedback loop with an inbound magnetic field in response to your thoughts might have some weird and possibly pretty trippy effects. Disclaimer: don't do this, this is probably how you get spontaneously generated warp singularities appearing in your lab
- mbrumlow 6y ago
  My wife is having a TMS treatment right now. Feom what I can tell something has changed, and she seems happier.
  - DetroitThrow 6y ago
    ECT is one of the most effective treatments we have for depression, and TMS certainly promises to allow a procedure that's similarly effective but less invasive/without anesthesia - reducing costs significantly. You can become manic from ECT, and I'd assume you can with TMS as well, but I'm sure your wife's psych knows all about the risks.
  - 6y ago
iandanforth 6y ago
This is near-quackery. The vagus nerve is composed of ~100k fibers of which about 80% are afferent fibers from organs. Each of the fibers conveys information in a fairly well ordered manner as do most neurons. Imagine if you will a highway with 100k lanes entering an absolutely massive city. Then you periodically turn on and off an earthquake machine which causes some cars on the roads to go faster, some to crash, and some to slow down. Then you observe the behavior of the city's economic output to see what happens. In one study one measure of the economy increases and you publish a paper about it. There is both a scale disconnect (the signal being introduced by the electrodes vs the thousands of isolated communication channels which operate independently) and a causal disconnect (you have no idea what happens between the disruption and the observed behavior). A lot of TMS studies suffer from these methodological flaws as well. Rather than saying things like this "opens the door to improving cognitive performance across a wide range of domains" they should be saying "we have no idea why this works at all, and you should absolutely not try this at home."
- nabla9 6y ago
  Vagus nerve stimulation (noninvasive or surgical implants) is used to treat many conditions like pain, epilepsy and depression. Vagus nerve stimulation is also used to tread bad cluster headaches. ps. Nerve stimulation is more targeted and precise than psychiatric medications. Meds just go everywhere.
  - DoingIsLearning 6y ago
    Parent is not arguing that Nerve stimulation is not used. The argument is (as with many of these therapies) that it is rare to have robust enough methodologies when testing this and that the positive effects claimed are often null/negligible or worse non-reproducible. Arguing peripheral nerve stimulation is effective because it is used as a therapy, gives it as much evidence-based robustness as homeopathy.
    - nabla9 6y ago
      > The argument is (as with many of these therapies) that it is rare to have robust enough methodologies when testing this and that the positive effects claimed are often null/negligible or worse non-reproducible. parent did not argue that. The parent criticized the method and did not challenge the result.
smabie 6y ago
I use a tdcs device 20 minutes a day while doing dual n-back practice, and would recommend this regimen to others who are interested in boosting working memory. Tdcs devices are really flexible and different electrode placements have different effects. Check out https://totaltdcs.com/ https://totaltdcs.com/ for more info.
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  https://tdcsbrain.com/product/apex-type-a-4ma-std https://tdcsbrain.com/product/apex-type-a-4ma-std Looking at this product, it seems failsafe. You just put the sponges on your scalp and adjust the voltage?
  - smabie 6y ago
    I've never used that particular device, but generally you soak the sponges in a saline solution, place the electrodes on the desired locations, and choose your desired voltage. Anything under 4ma is considered safe, though I personally never go past 2ma. I use the improved attention montage: https://totaltdcs.com/electrode-placement-montage-list/improved-attention/ https://totaltdcs.com/electrode-placement-montage-list/impro...
knolax 6y ago
Every time I read a neuroscience paper I remember that one study where they had neuroscientists try and fail to reverse engineer some classic arcade games with their methods.

132 points by lelf 6y ago

mjoxley 6y ago

tVNS devices are available to buy at https://vagus.net https://vagus.net

lvturner 6y ago
It seems similar devices are available on Amazon for considerably less - any idea why the significant hike in price?
- mjoxley 6y ago
  Devices on amazon are repurposed tENS devices which control voltage rather than current. tVNS is an emerging area of research and to repeat studies you need to understand the "dosage" which means the current delivered, because the same voltage can result in different currents depending on resistance. The accuracy of the biphasic waveform is also a factor.
  - lvturner 6y ago
    I checked your bio and this is obviously an area you know a great deal about, and one I'm interested in. Do you happen to have any high-level resources on the differences, pros & cons of TENS/tVNS/tDCS/PEMF and why one would be chosen over the other? I'm slowly starting to piece things together, but frankly I'm a bit overwhelmed by it all
    - mjoxley 6y ago
      Thanks. They're all experimental and YMMV. What's exciting with tVNS cf tDCS is that you can use HRV as a measure of efficacy.

wst_ 6y ago

It looks to me like listening practice, really. This is something that people usualy do when they want to learn a new language - we are learning languages not by sitting in class but through immersion. I'm wondering how the results would look like if they'd introduce third group - people who actively watch/listen to Chinese TV shows or podcasts.

qserasera 6y ago

> In the new study, published today in npj Science of Learning, researchers significantly improved the ability of native English speakers to distinguish between Mandarin tones by using precisely timed, non-invasive stimulation of the vagus nerve—the longest of the 12 cranial nerves that connect the brain to the rest of the body. What's more, vagus nerve stimulation allowed research participants to pick up some Mandarin tones twice as quickly. I'd rather have the Chinese learn english than to have a device tickle my cranial nerves.

johnnujler 6y ago

That day when no wants to put any effort into anything will be a fun day in the history of mankind.

totetsu 6y ago
Perception of phonetic features which are not markedly meaningful in your native language is a very hard thing. It's not just a matter of putting in effort of not.

kanobo 6y ago

Imagine if scientists could one day figure out how to expand the linguistic critical period into adulthood, we could all be polygots.

recuter 6y ago
I'm a polyglot and half my languages were learned as an adult. I really think you just need to immerse yourself for a few months. It feels so so strange to me that the science is apparently still out on that.
- lgessler 6y ago
  That doesn't change the fact that during the critical period people are muuuuch better at acquiring language than after. Moreover, while people are fairly equal in their ability to acquire a language during the critical period, there is _much_ more variance in ability, all else being equal, after the critical period. The science isn't still out on that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - recuter 6y ago
    Maybe they are just much better at not being so easily discouraged. And as for the study: By the end of the training, those participants were 13% better on average.. There's a general feeling that people can't learn the sound patterns of a new language in adulthood, but our work historically has shown that's not true for everyone," Chandrasekaran said. "In this study, we are seeing that tVNS reduces those individual differences more than any other intervention I've seen." "In general, people tend to get discouraged by how hard language learning can be, but if you could give someone 13% to 15% better results after their first session, maybe they'd be more likely to want to continue." Sounds like placebo to me. ROMANES EUNT DOMUS.
    - plutonorm 6y ago

valine 6y ago

I’d bet this is useful for a range of memorization tasks other than language learning. I imagine this works because it strengthens the signal to noise ratio by pairing auditory stimulus with vagus nerve stimulation. It’s kind of like how reading something out loud can help you remember it, only in this case it’s like you are reading aloud and listening to someone else read at the same time. I wonder if it could be used to improve reading comprehension. Say you are reading a story, maybe each character has their own waveform, and as you read or listen the stim pulse changes based on who is talking. Or lets say you are reading a math textbook. You could label different variables with different stim pulses, which might make it easier to follow complex logic or minimize the need to re-read different sections.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

arthurcolle 6y ago

Interesting. There's a whole class of these non-invasive field methods to affect human brains - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulat... is another similar idea. I have this cool book that I've recommended before on this site called Neurochronometrics of Mind or something close to that which discusses a lot of the data around these methods. It's super dense but I was interested in trying to build a device 10 years ago and was discouraged by most. Seems like the data points to it potentially yielding a plethora of positive outcomes if done properly, but probably not by a non-clinician. Really interesting stuff. Imagine watching your own brainwaves with a 4096 channel OpenBCI kit (openbci.org iirc) and then engaging in a biofeedback experiment where depending on how you consciously react to seeing your various brainwaves in real-time, the hypothetical combo device also has a series of rTMS tori that each selectively expose you to varying gauss levels (give me some rope here I'm not a mad scientist) that the various parts of your brain get exposed to. Not sure how applicable or useful it might be but it's interesting to think about. A colleague of mine worked on visualization of brain waves for technological applications and told me it was a pretty wild experience to see your brain waves in real-time while also watching them in parallel, so I imagine creating a tight feedback loop with an inbound magnetic field in response to your thoughts might have some weird and possibly pretty trippy effects. Disclaimer: don't do this, this is probably how you get spontaneously generated warp singularities appearing in your lab

mbrumlow 6y ago
My wife is having a TMS treatment right now. Feom what I can tell something has changed, and she seems happier.
- DetroitThrow 6y ago
  ECT is one of the most effective treatments we have for depression, and TMS certainly promises to allow a procedure that's similarly effective but less invasive/without anesthesia - reducing costs significantly. You can become manic from ECT, and I'd assume you can with TMS as well, but I'm sure your wife's psych knows all about the risks.
- 6y ago

iandanforth 6y ago

This is near-quackery. The vagus nerve is composed of ~100k fibers of which about 80% are afferent fibers from organs. Each of the fibers conveys information in a fairly well ordered manner as do most neurons. Imagine if you will a highway with 100k lanes entering an absolutely massive city. Then you periodically turn on and off an earthquake machine which causes some cars on the roads to go faster, some to crash, and some to slow down. Then you observe the behavior of the city's economic output to see what happens. In one study one measure of the economy increases and you publish a paper about it. There is both a scale disconnect (the signal being introduced by the electrodes vs the thousands of isolated communication channels which operate independently) and a causal disconnect (you have no idea what happens between the disruption and the observed behavior). A lot of TMS studies suffer from these methodological flaws as well. Rather than saying things like this "opens the door to improving cognitive performance across a wide range of domains" they should be saying "we have no idea why this works at all, and you should absolutely not try this at home."

nabla9 6y ago
Vagus nerve stimulation (noninvasive or surgical implants) is used to treat many conditions like pain, epilepsy and depression. Vagus nerve stimulation is also used to tread bad cluster headaches. ps. Nerve stimulation is more targeted and precise than psychiatric medications. Meds just go everywhere.
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago
  Parent is not arguing that Nerve stimulation is not used. The argument is (as with many of these therapies) that it is rare to have robust enough methodologies when testing this and that the positive effects claimed are often null/negligible or worse non-reproducible. Arguing peripheral nerve stimulation is effective because it is used as a therapy, gives it as much evidence-based robustness as homeopathy.
  - nabla9 6y ago
    > The argument is (as with many of these therapies) that it is rare to have robust enough methodologies when testing this and that the positive effects claimed are often null/negligible or worse non-reproducible. parent did not argue that. The parent criticized the method and did not challenge the result.

smabie 6y ago

I use a tdcs device 20 minutes a day while doing dual n-back practice, and would recommend this regimen to others who are interested in boosting working memory. Tdcs devices are really flexible and different electrode placements have different effects. Check out https://totaltdcs.com/ https://totaltdcs.com/ for more info.

dr_dshiv 6y ago
https://tdcsbrain.com/product/apex-type-a-4ma-std https://tdcsbrain.com/product/apex-type-a-4ma-std Looking at this product, it seems failsafe. You just put the sponges on your scalp and adjust the voltage?
- smabie 6y ago
  I've never used that particular device, but generally you soak the sponges in a saline solution, place the electrodes on the desired locations, and choose your desired voltage. Anything under 4ma is considered safe, though I personally never go past 2ma. I use the improved attention montage: https://totaltdcs.com/electrode-placement-montage-list/improved-attention/ https://totaltdcs.com/electrode-placement-montage-list/impro...

knolax 6y ago

Every time I read a neuroscience paper I remember that one study where they had neuroscientists try and fail to reverse engineer some classic arcade games with their methods.