ZAPPING YOUR BRAIN

What about hacking your brain with an at-home electrical brainstimulation kit? Officially known as transcranial direct-current stimulation (TDCS), mindzapping with low-power currents has been shown to have positive effects on memory, creativity, and attention in recent studies. Now a fan base of the curious is growing for do-ityourself TDCS. You can buy a kit complete with wires, stick-on sponges (you soak them in salt water so they carry the current to your skull), and a small plug-in or battery-powered electrical source for as little as $99.

A reddit.com forum for TDCS has more than

13,000 subscribers, who report mixed results. But TDCS home units are not Fdaapproved for brain stimulation. A 2019 review in the journal Neuron found little scientific evidence to back up most devices’ claims. And a group of neuroscientists who study electrical brain stimulation warned in a 2016 letter in Annals of Neurology that zapping your brain on your own could have harmful effects that no one has yet studied.

Besides, why take a chance on an unproven brain boost when science has found so many easier, safer, and cheaper ones that do the trick?