Posted by Jimmyboy on December 24, 2006, at 13:52:40
I got this from the Scientific American Mind website , its a current free article called " Juicing the Brain". Thought it was interesting , and was wondering if anyone had heard of this before.
"An intriguing question is whether electrical stimulation might help uninjured people exceed their normal intellectual capacities. One technique being explored is direct-current (DC) polarization. At a 2004 Society for Neuroscience meeting, researchers from the National Institutes of Health reported that a tiny amount of electricity delivered to the brain through an electrode on the scalp produced measurable improvement in verbal skills. They asked volunteers to name as many words as possible that began with a certain letter. The subjects showed about a 20 percent improvement when the current (two thousandths of an ampere, far less than that needed to run a digital watch) was on.
Because the current ran through the prefrontal cortex, the researchers speculated that the firing rate of neurons was increased, activating cells involved in word generation. The tiny charge seemed to have no deleterious effects, other than to leave certain individuals with an itchy scalp. Moreover, the fact that the technique does not involve surgery makes it more practical than implanted electrodes. "
poster:Jimmyboy
thread:716159
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061224/msgs/716159.html