5 ms·

The Internet’s DIY brain hackers

46 points by lingben 12y ago

dominotw 12y ago
Or you can exercise, read long passages, eat healthy and try living a stress free life(by not worshipping success).
- david 12y ago
  ...and completely miss the point.
cheepin 12y ago
Reading this reminded me of an article I read a little while ago talking about the tradeoffs "biohackers" take on to try to get ahead on relatively untested techniques[0]. It seems a little silly to think that shocking your brain with electricity will give you an advantage without significant side-effects, but who knows... as for me, I'll wait until brain-shockers have demonstrably better mental health. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/01/searching-for-one-sided-tradeoffs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/01/searching-for-one-sided...
3rd3 12y ago
Reminds me of this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wilhelm_Ritter#Life_and_work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wilhelm_Ritter#Life_and_...
legomylibrum 12y ago
This comes up every now and then. If people want to randomly zap their brains that's their prerogative, but let's call a spade a spade. I sincerely doubt that anybody will ever improve their brain by shocking their scalp. The underlying idea is sound; deep brain stimulation, which this is sort of analogous to, is a surprising if short-lived panacea to a wide range of conditions. Applied randomly it's as likely to exacerbate a negative effect as it is to treat one, but it is generally performed by a trained neural surgeon while the patient reports on how well it's working, and it doesn't last too long anyways. TDCS is like deep brain stimulation in that it applies a current to your brain, but the effect borders on homeopathic. It's imprecise, the charge is (happily) too weak to bring about any real change in the brain from the scalp, and I doubt it's anything more than a placebo, best case.
- kanzure 12y ago
  You can get a few centimeters past the skull with ultrasound stimulation: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/ultrasound/Histological%20findings%20in%20the%20brain%20after%20focused%20ultrasound%20ablation%20combined%20with%20definity%20using%20parameters%20suited%20for%20transcranial%20application.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/ultrasound/Histologica...
maguirre 12y ago
People at radiolab tried this out. I am skeptical about it but there seem to be some empirical evidence to support it? http://www.radiolab.org/story/9-volt-nirvana/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/9-volt-nirvana/
zeyus 12y ago
Oh Please: "I trust a lot in my intuition,” he said. “When you start doing this kind of stuff, you start to develop intuition.” He has also experimented with biofeedback tones to achieve different brainwave states and sun gazing to stimulate and heal the mind and body."
duckingtest 12y ago
It's like punching a tv when it stops working. It can sometimes help, but in general, the method is way too crude to fix a complicated machine and can easily cause more damage.

46 points by lingben 12y ago

dominotw 12y ago

Or you can exercise, read long passages, eat healthy and try living a stress free life(by not worshipping success).

david 12y ago
...and completely miss the point.

cheepin 12y ago

Reading this reminded me of an article I read a little while ago talking about the tradeoffs "biohackers" take on to try to get ahead on relatively untested techniques[0]. It seems a little silly to think that shocking your brain with electricity will give you an advantage without significant side-effects, but who knows... as for me, I'll wait until brain-shockers have demonstrably better mental health. [0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/01/searching-for-one-sided-tradeoffs/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/01/searching-for-one-sided...

3rd3 12y ago

Reminds me of this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wilhelm_Ritter#Life_and_work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wilhelm_Ritter#Life_and_...

legomylibrum 12y ago

This comes up every now and then. If people want to randomly zap their brains that's their prerogative, but let's call a spade a spade. I sincerely doubt that anybody will ever improve their brain by shocking their scalp. The underlying idea is sound; deep brain stimulation, which this is sort of analogous to, is a surprising if short-lived panacea to a wide range of conditions. Applied randomly it's as likely to exacerbate a negative effect as it is to treat one, but it is generally performed by a trained neural surgeon while the patient reports on how well it's working, and it doesn't last too long anyways. TDCS is like deep brain stimulation in that it applies a current to your brain, but the effect borders on homeopathic. It's imprecise, the charge is (happily) too weak to bring about any real change in the brain from the scalp, and I doubt it's anything more than a placebo, best case.

kanzure 12y ago
You can get a few centimeters past the skull with ultrasound stimulation: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/ultrasound/Histological%20findings%20in%20the%20brain%20after%20focused%20ultrasound%20ablation%20combined%20with%20definity%20using%20parameters%20suited%20for%20transcranial%20application.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/ultrasound/Histologica...

maguirre 12y ago

People at radiolab tried this out. I am skeptical about it but there seem to be some empirical evidence to support it? http://www.radiolab.org/story/9-volt-nirvana/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/9-volt-nirvana/

zeyus 12y ago

Oh Please: "I trust a lot in my intuition,” he said. “When you start doing this kind of stuff, you start to develop intuition.” He has also experimented with biofeedback tones to achieve different brainwave states and sun gazing to stimulate and heal the mind and body."

duckingtest 12y ago

It's like punching a tv when it stops working. It can sometimes help, but in general, the method is way too crude to fix a complicated machine and can easily cause more damage.