We can say that we are already accustomed to the fact that drugs are being smuggled around the world - chemicals that can dramatically change human behavior, stimulate his desires and capabilities. Over time, it became clear that the processes in the human body and his brain can be influenced physically, with the help of electricity, by methods of direct electrical stimulation.
A man sits in front of a computer and looks attentively at the screen, which proves to him a rather strange "movie" - an endless stream of cars on the track. But the man looks attentively, as if he is being shown a detective story with an exciting plot. And from time to time he presses the keys.
He has an incentive to be attentive. If, among the endless stream of cars, the same one suddenly slips a second time, and the person does not notice it by pressing a key, he will immediately be quite noticeably electric shock.
Then the plot suddenly changes. Now the person seems to be moving through the crowd of passers-by on the street. But his task is the same: to carefully monitor whether one person or a figure flashes among the passers-by twice. And again, for the loss of attentiveness, the punishment immediately follows - an electric shock.
They say that such a peculiar method of electrical stimulation of attention was invented by experts of the Third Reich. Before World War II, they trained special agents, developed an instinctive habit of automatically noticing surveillance.
Likewise, Nazi doctors are said to have treated stuttering by forcing the patient to carefully monitor every word he uttered.
Then this method was adopted by the special services of many countries of the world. But since you and I seem to live in a more civilized world, the method itself has been modernized over time.
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Researchers at the University of Oxford (UK) have found that similar results can be achieved by directly exposing the brain to a weak electrical current. At the same time, a person will read faster, solve problems better and remember more.
"This study heralds a new era of cheap, convenient technologies for developing the brain," experts say. The method has proven to be a useful research tool and has helped scientists learn how different areas of the brain work together. It can be made therapeutic if it is able to activate the activity of areas of the brain involved in specific mental tasks, such as reading or doing math.
With direct transcranial stimulation of the brain (this is the name of the technique used in Oxford), one or another of its areas is affected by an electric current of a certain frequency, increasing or decreasing the activity of these areas.
Research in this area has essentially just begun, but early results are very encouraging. It turns out that the brain and muscles can be activated without resorting to chemistry.
Similar studies are being undertaken in the United States. Thus, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, believe that deep brain stimulation, when one or another area is massaged with electrical impulses through implanted electrodes, has worked well for those suffering from Parkinson's syndrome.
After this stimulation, their control over their movements improved. There are encouraging results on the use of deep stimulation for the treatment of major depression and other psychiatric disorders.
And recently even memory has been stimulated. The experimenters set up an experiment on epileptics, who implanted electrodes in the brain to determine which part of it is to blame for the seizures, and then neutralize it.
The scientists took advantage of this. They invited volunteers to play a car simulator; I had to find a route from point A to point B while driving a virtual car. After completing the task, they performed deep brain stimulation and looked to see if the results improved.
Well, the stimulation really did improve memory. According to the researchers, the participants in the experiment made a shorter route after stimulation and eventually got to the goal faster.
In 2013, the Fic.us company introduced an unusual gadget for avid gamers. This is a headband with four electrodes that will send electrical impulses to the player's brain, improving his reaction and other qualities necessary for victory.
The method of transcranial stimulation with electric current (tDCS) is completely painless, because the current on the electrodes does not exceed 2 mA. Until recently, it was used almost exclusively in medicine and psychiatry, but Michael Oxley and Martin Skinner decided that brain stimulation would be useful for ordinary video game lovers.
The current pulses improve the speed and reaction of the hoop holder, which allows him to outplay other players. Electricity also stimulates motor functions, attention and memory. At the same time, the effectiveness and harmlessness have not yet been fully proven. Occasionally people using the device complain about the appearance of white dots in the field of view, which disappear when the device is removed.
An average stimulation session lasts about ten minutes. The developers do not recommend exceeding this limit. Thus, it is not at all necessary to play with the hoop on. It is enough to carry out a ten-minute "meditation" with an electrical appliance and only then jump into an online battle.
Note that Foc.us does not sell the new product to persons under the age of 18 and does not recommend using it for those who suffer from epilepsy and other disorders. The device is available in red or black design.
The technology seems to be safer than the use of chemicals. But there is no definitive certainty about that. Many more cycles of long-term observations are needed to make sure that electrical stimulation, even with weak currents, will not cause increased wear and tear of brain cells, and will not lead to dependence on stimulation similar to narcotic.
In addition, since the effect on the patient is carried out by weak currents that he does not feel, such a procedure is easy to simulate, which opens up a wide field of activity for charlatans who will simply deceive their patients, taking money from them and not doing anything for them.
The official recognition of the method can also become a problem. Someone will think that this is a "hacking" of the brain. Others will not like the direct reminder that our thoughts can be changed by the application of current. Finally, while there is no guarantee that, having got used to electrical stimulation, without the influence of the current, a person will suddenly feel something like a breakdown of a drug addict, his brain will no longer be able to work any productively without outside "energy feeding", believes Stephen Novella - Associate Professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine Yale University (USA).
Possible, in principle, and even worse option, experts say. Electrodes implanted in certain areas of the brain will turn a person into an obedient radio-controlled zombie. The first experiments on this part, initially only on animals, were carried out in the middle of the 20th century. The Spaniard Jose Delgado publicly pacified the bull in the bullfighting arena, commanded the behavior of monkeys and cats using electrical impulses. However, many of his developments have not yet become widespread. And that's why.
From experiments on animals, Delgado moved on to experiments on humans. By irritating various areas of the limbic system that regulates emotions, it could induce fear, rage, lust, gaiety, talkativeness, and other reactions that sometimes reached frightening intensity. For example, in one of the experiments, Delgado and two Harvard University employees began stimulating the temporal lobe of the brain of a young woman with epilepsy, while she was calmly playing the guitar. As a result, she flew into a rage and smashed the guitar against the wall, nearly hitting the researcher's head.
The therapeutic effect of the implants was unstable, the results were very different not only in different patients, but even in the same person at different times. Therefore, Delgado began to refuse most patients, fearing unpredictable reactions.
In particular, he did not perform the operation on a certain young woman with an irregular sex life and a tendency to violence, who was repeatedly sent to prisons and psychiatric hospitals, although she herself and her parents begged the doctor to implant electrodes in her. He considered that in the absence of an obvious neurological disease, electrical stimulation would in this case be too gross an interference in the life of a particular person.
Nevertheless, it is no longer a secret that Delgado's work was funded not only by civilian agencies, but also by the military, including the US Naval Research Administration. True, as the scientist insisted, he never received money from the CIA, for which he was repeatedly accused. He also insisted that Pentagon sponsors viewed his work as basic research and never pushed him to develop psychotropic weapons.
And yet, opponents of Delgado quite rightly believed that his developments could be used without the knowledge of the author himself. Using his techniques, implanting implants into the brain, you can turn any person into a kind of cyborg killer.
And no matter how the researcher rejected such insinuations, arguing that brain stimulation can only enhance or weaken a person's aggressive behavior, but is not able to "direct it to any specific target," it seems that they did not completely believe him. The special services are too tempted to get their hands on such “universal soldiers” who do not know fear, who act without reasoning and doubt.
