Inside the Strange New World of DIY Brain Stimulation
BY GREG MILLER

When Brent Williams got to RadioShack that day in the spring of 2012, he knew exactly what he was looking for: a variable resistor, a current regulator, a circuit board, and a 9-volt battery. The total came to around $20. Williams is tall and balding, with wire-rim glasses that make him look like an engineer, which he is. He directs a center on technology in education at Kennesaw State University and is the kind of guy who spends his free time chatting up people on his ham radio or trying to glimpse a passing comet with his telescope. But this project was different.

When he got home, he took his supplies into his office. He heated up his soldering iron, hoping his wife wouldn’t see what he was up to. He fished a few wires out of his desk and built a simple circuit. Using alligator clips, he connected the circuit to two kitchen sponges soaked in saline and strapped them to his head with a sweatband. He positioned one sponge just above his right eyebrow and the other up high on the left side of his forehead. Then he snapped the battery into place, turned a small dial, and sent an electric current into his brain.


Turn the red knob to adjust the current flowing to your brain. Gregory Miller

It’s been nearly two years since Williams cobbled together his first device, and he has been electrifying his brain two to three times a week ever since. Often he does it for about 25 minutes in the evening while reading on the couch. Sometimes it’s while he’s doing laundry or other chores. It’s become just another part of his routine, like brushing his teeth.

Williams got the idea from a news story about how Air Force researchers were studying whether brain stimulation could cut pilot training time. The military is not alone in thinking that brain zapping may improve mental function. In recent years, the method—technically known as transcranial direct current stimulation—has caught the interest of academic researchers. British neuroscientists have claimed it can make people better at learning math. A team at Harvard has found promise for depression and chronic pain. Others are looking into using it to treat tinnitus and eating disorders and to speed up stroke recovery. Hundreds of papers have been published, and clinical trials are under way.

Though these are still early days for the research—many of the studies are small and the effects modest—it has inspired largely enthusiastic media coverage (“the electric thinking cap that makes you cleverer … and happier!” one British newspaper gushed) and spawned a community of DIY brain zappers.

Williams is one of its leaders. The treatments have made a huge difference in his life, he says. He retains more information from the tedious journal articles he has to read for work, and he feels more creative. On his blog, SpeakWisdom, he posts technically detailed reviews of stimulation devices and cheerfully gives advice to anyone considering trying it for the first time. He’s got lots of company. A subreddit devoted to the practice has nearly 4,000 subscribers who actively follow the scientific research and share tips on where to place the electrodes on your head if, say, you’re depressed, too impulsive, or just want to amp up your creativity.
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SpeedOfSound wrote:Like a personal mini-electroconvulsive therapy. Wonder why ECT works?

Taking control of dreams could involve currents
BY REBECCA SMITH, LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH

Sweet dreams are made of this - electric currents pumped directly into your brain, according to scientists

Researchers in Germany have developed a way of enabling sleepers to control their dreams by applying electric current to the brain which prompts lucid dreams, involving a state of heightened awareness.

This allows the sleeper to recognize they are dreaming and influence what happens next. A similar concept was explored in the hit movie Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. However, unlike the film where DiCaprio's character infiltrates the dreams of others, the study only involved sleepers controlling their own dreams. In ordinary dreams, which occur during the rapid-eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the dreamer's conscious state usually has no access to past memories or anticipated events in the future, the researchers said. In lucid dreaming, extra cognitive functions are involved such as self-awareness and free will.

This combination of brain activity may enable the dreamer to voluntarily control the dream plot.

While previous research has associated lucid dreaming with increased gamma activity in the frontal and temporal regions of the brain, it has not been clear if the lucid dream triggers extra gamma activity or if the gamma activity is the source of the enhanced dreaming.
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