Want to get smarter? It couldn't be easier. Perhaps one will soon be enough … no, not a tablet, but an ordinary nine-volt battery.
The study of the effect of direct electric current on biological organisms has been going on for more than two centuries - just remember Luigi Galvani with his experiment on the contraction of the muscles of a frog's leg. Galvani's nephew, Giovanni Aldini, went further than his uncle: in the early 1800s, he passed a current through the severed heads of executed criminals, as a result of which muscles contract, so that the eyes opened, and the faces writhed in grimaces, as if alive. Aldini also tried direct current treatments for melancholic depression, but the results were not very promising. But Aldini nevertheless entered the history of Aldini with his experiments: it is believed that he became the prototype of Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist of the famous novel of the same name by Mary Shelley.
Felipe Freini, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School:
First steps
In 1964, Joe Redfirn, a psychiatrist at a British hospital in Chichester, discovered that by passing a weak (50-250 μA) electric current through electrodes located at certain points of the scalp (now this method is called transcranial electrical stimulation, TES), you can achieve various effects … Depending on the direction of the current, the volunteers became either sociable and talkative, or taciturn and withdrawn. However, colleagues could not reproduce his experiments, so that soon these studies were forgotten. Interest revived in the 1990s with the introduction of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the effect of a low-frequency magnetic field on the brain. In 1993, Alberto Priori, a neurophysiologist at the University of Milan, showed that TPP increases the effectiveness of subsequent TMS.but his colleagues simply did not believe him - they doubted that the electric current penetrates into the skull at all (Priori managed to convince the scientific community that he was right only in 1998).
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How TPP works
Only in the early 2000s did scientists begin to understand exactly how a thermal power plant works. Direct current flowing through the brain tissue creates an electric field that changes the potential difference across the membranes of neurons. “Anodic” stimulation, in which the electrodes “pull” electrons toward themselves, leads to depolarization of neurons, which increases the likelihood of their excitation when a signal from other cells arrives. "Cathodic" stimulation leads to the opposite effect, causing hyperpolarization of neurons (an increase in the potential difference across the membranes) and reducing their excitability. Moreover, the effect lasts a long time - within an hour after exposure. Pharmacologists believe that when an electric current flows, the production of special proteins called NMDA receptors increases. This brings the nervous tissue into a state of "plasticity"when neurons are ready to rewire their connections in response to external stimuli.
Faster and smarter
Such, for example, as learning - even new languages, even new motor skills. In 2011, Vincent Clarke, a neurologist at the University of New Mexico, demonstrated a simple device consisting of a nine-volt battery, a resistor, and a set of electrodes to attach to the scalp. A current of 2 mA allowed subjects to score twice as many points in the DARWARS Ambush! Training video game, which the US military used as a trainer for soldiers traveling to Iraq, than their counterparts in the control group (with a current of 0.1 mA). The players learned faster, although they did not understand the reasons for this. Many other studies show that EFT improves working memory, associative thinking, and faster creative problem solving. Allan Snyder, director of the Center for Consciousness at the University of Sydney, believesthat soon “electrodoping for the brain” may well appear on the market, and predicts this method will be widely used in solving complex problems.
True, given the fact that a device for a thermal power plant can be easily assembled by almost any person with a very moderate knowledge of electrical engineering, many scientists urge to be careful when using these methods at home. Moreover, numerous enthusiasts who have experimented on themselves share on the Internet symptoms of side effects: flashes in the eyes, headaches, irritation and even burns at the points of contact with the electrodes. Do not forget about the ethical aspect of the use of such methods, because it is hardly possible to reveal the use of EFT, say, before exams.
Dmitry Mamontov