Can this electric helmet boost your brain power?
Brain- hacking. it sounds sinister and quite possibly illegal, like a cerebral version of computer-hacking. But i’ve been brain-hacked. it happened on Thursday morning in Swansea. and not only am i still here to tell the tale, it also made me better at darts.
Of course, not many people care how good they are at darts. But there is evidence to suggest that brain-hacking, or transcranial direct-current stimulation (TDCS) to give it the proper scientific name, can treat depression, aid stroke victims, help to overcome nicotine addiction and even improve mathematical ability in children.
i’m not in need of any of those forms of assistance, though it would be nice if some wires and electrodes could succeed where 40 years ago nice Mr Johnson from king george V grammar School for Boys in Southport failed, and help me master the rudiments of long division.
and like most of us, i could do with a sharper memory. My foreign language skills are not what they should be and i’d love to be able to nail even one clue in a cryptic crossword. Oh, and speaking of nails, i am utterly useless at DIY.
apparently brain-hacking can help with all that, as well as enhancing sports performance.
So what is brain-hacking? in simple terms, it is a gentle stimulation of the brain with a mild electrical current, administered between two electrodes.
The neurons we all have up there already act as a kind of electric circuit. This treatment adds an extra electric field on top, temporarily making the brain keener by altering the behaviour of the neurons, though nowhere near as dramatically as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the barbaric psychiatric treatment developed in the Thirties to ‘cure’ mental illness, which basically resets all the processing in the brain.
For some of us, the very idea of an electric current passing through the brain conjures horrific images of the 1975 film One Flew Over The cuckoo’s nest, which, according to the royal college of Psychiatrists, did for ECT what Jaws did for sharks.
Thankfully TDCS is nothing like that. if ECT typically sends 800 milliamps of electricity through the brain, TDCS sends between one and two, equivalent to less than 1 per cent of the power of a 60-watt light-bulb.
SO, Last week at Swansea University, i hoped the main result of my flirtation with TDCS would be hitting a couple of bullseyes on the dart board. a rather glamorous Spanish research student, azahara De la Vega Fernandez, is investigating under supervision from nick Davis, psychology lecturer, how brain stimulation can be used to improve sporting ability. She invited me to throw ten darts before being brain-hacked, and ten darts after.
and, while the current was gently sizzling through me, she played me a tape in which a man calmly talked me into picturing how brilliantly i was going to throw those arrows. There is no point undergoing TDCS if you’re not already mentally focused.
Davis compares it with a weightlifter taking steroids. ‘if he takes them without pumping iron, they won’t give him bigger muscles,’ he says.
he also summons the example of andy Murray going back to his chair between games, and replaying in his mind the shots he has just played, as well as imagining himself walking up to the net as the eventual winner. it’s called visualisation, and all modern sportsmen and women are encouraged to do it.
Davis thinks that TDCS could help them do it better, sharpening that mental imagery. That’s why he’s experimenting on people like me.
First i needed to put my thinking cap on. This is the Star Stim, a rubber hat with electrodes dangling from it. Made in Barcelona, it costs £7,000.
Even if it was ever permitted during a tennis match — which opens up a whole other debate about whether, like taking steroids, it would be construed as cheating — i can’t visualise andy Murray wearing one.
after checking there is no family history of epilepsy, which could be aggravated by TDCS, Davis tells me they would be targeting my parietal lobe, which was exciting, because i didn’t even know i had one.
it’s the part of the brain that combines information from all the senses. But the beauty of TDCS, when properly applied by people who know what they’re doing, is that it can be aimed at different areas of the brain, responsible for particular functions.
i can’t say it was an entirely pleasant experience being zapped with 1.5 milliamps for ten minutes, and not merely because i looked like i might be going to a fancy- dress party as a mad Edwardian inventor.
The current, when switched on, yielded a kind of warm tingle, rather like a mild dose of sunburn. at one point i have a powerful urge to tear the cap from my head, which fortunately i suppressed.
But it was all worthwhile, because my dart-throwing after the treatment scored a 67, compared with the 62 i managed before.
Davis acknowledges the possibility that my improvement might have been simply because i’d had some practice, but i definitely feel more focused, more alert. it was no surprise to learn that the U.S. military is conducting tests to find out whether brain-hacking can increase alertness in soldiers.
‘if you have a guy keeping watch for six hours, and someone pops up with a rifle, he’s not going to be as alert as he was at the start,’ says Davis.
‘in the past they’ve used pharmaceuticals, even amphetamines, but that can have other side- effects. keeping soldiers alert has been a problem since the time of the ancient greeks. This might be a way to solve it.’
Mild electrical stimulation of the brain, though, is nothing new. it goes back to the ancient world, because in AD 46 the roman emperor claudius let his physician Scribonius largus try something a bit different in the quest to alleviate his debilitating headaches.
largus held a couple of electric eels against the emperor’s temples.
it would be nice to say this made the headaches disappear, and also cured claudius’s stammer. it didn’t. But it remains the earliest recorded instance of electrical stimulation used as a medical treatment.
More sophisticated forms of TDCS have been in use for the past century, but it was only about 15 years ago, with the increased use of brainimaging techniques, that it became popular again.
THERE is, nevertheless, still plenty to learn, which is why Davis is worried about so- called ‘garage neuroscientists’ trying it at home. all you need is a couple of wires and a battery.
in the past year or so, brain-hacking has quietly been acquiring more and more devotees, like some weird religious sect becoming gradually more mainstream. home-assembly kits are available online, and social networking sites are full of practical advice, posted by a growing community of amateur TDCS zealots, who build their own equipment and zap their own brains.
But Davis wishes they wouldn’t — even those who claim miraculous results, such as one university student who was struggling to retain information when revising for his finals, zapped himself a few times, and got a First. Davis warns that at home t he current might be too powerful, and could be directed through the wrong part of the brain, with possibly tragic consequences.
‘i equate it with educating people about drug- taking,’ he says. ‘You can say, “drugs are bad, don’t take them”. Or you can say “drug-taking is bad for you and here are the reasons why”, enabling people to make a more informed decision. But they aren’t being given the information.’
and what about me? Davis thinks that the effects of TDCS wear off after about 20 minutes. Others say it can take up to an hour.
Whatever, all i can report is that shortly after leaving the laboratory i parked my car, with consummate ease, in an impossibly tight spot. So despite all the warnings, i did wonder as i made my home whether i should try to build my own, basic device. But of course i’d never manage it. i’d need to be brain-hacked first, to have the remotest chance of knowing where to put the wires.