Electrical stimulation can boost brain's willingness to engage in mental effort

https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/buzzing-the-brain-with-electricity-can-boost-the-willingness-to-engage-in-mental-effort-67245

by webmaven • 3 years ago

112 76 3 years ago

psypost.org

epicureanideal• 3 years ago

"Remember where ze troops are moving or you vil get ze shock" - Not surprising that electrical stimulation would boost mental effort.

ipsum2• 3 years ago

That's an inaccurate description of the paper. The "shocks" are continuous, not reward driven. Both control and experimental groups received the electrical current.

PolyphonyReq• 3 years ago

As a person with ADHD I'd be super curious how we respond to it.

zadler• 3 years ago

BRB just going to find a wall socket

tjpnz• 3 years ago

How was it? Are you ok?

LoganDark• 3 years ago

yeah, ADHD is a terrible life-destroying menace and it would be nice to have something that could motivate me to eat food more than once every few days.

(I'm referring to the fact that it made us drop out of school and lose 3 jobs. It has, objectively, made our life absolute hell. And we thought we were just lazy or stupid for over a decade until we found out about ADHD. Stimulants don't help us.)

-Emily

Quequau• 3 years ago

Or in my case cook the heathy, cheaper, food that I actually enjoy eating rather than the ultra-processed, pre-made, food like substances that make my stomach ache.

wincy2• 3 years ago

That’d be nice, I take Adderall every day and still weigh 300 pounds. It wears off and I crave ice cream like none other.

58x145• 3 years ago

I posted above briefly about my experience with a TES device.

While my usage was occasional, I did have a very unique perceived response to a session, and it wasn’t dissimilar to stimulants prescribed for ADHD.

However, that response didn’t last much longer than a few minutes after removing the device. I also didn’t feel the mild pseudo-euphoria I commonly experience with ADHD medication, which seems a significant element of resolving ADHD symptoms.

PragmaticPulp2• 3 years ago

I also didn’t feel the mild pseudo-euphoria I commonly experience with ADHD medication, which seems a significant element of resolving ADHD symptoms.

This is more of a side effect, which disappears over time. Relying on the euphoria of stimulants to get work done is a dead end, so be careful with this assumption.

hecticjeff• 3 years ago

Maybe this is why Apple still hasn’t properly grounded it’s MacBooks, that light buzz you get is a brain boost!

elevaet4• 3 years ago

What's with that? I'm constantly getting minor shocks from my Macbook, often when the inside of my forearm or wrist touches a corner of the case. I thought it was a problem with my old one, but my new one does it too.

There is also a constant light vibration when you run your fingers lightly along the body. It's quite Shocking that this is apparently "normal". None of this happens when it's running on battery.

bspammer• 3 years ago

I was honestly questioning whether there was something wrong with the wiring in my house that was causing this (after having multiple MacBooks with the same issue), because the alternative that a company of Apple’s size had such a basic issue seemed so unlikely.

ovi256• 3 years ago

Are you using your Macbook with an ungrounded (two prong) plug or in an ungrounded outlet ? That's the typical cause of this behaviour (or a badly-grounded outlet, which is rare, fortunately).

The shocks you observe are caused by your body slightly grounding the conductive case. They are seen with any conductive case equipment used without grounding. Fortunately, they are not dangerous on doubly-insulated equipment like Macbooks.

sandos• 3 years ago

Got our kids windows laptops this christmas, and they behave exactly like this when plugged in with the included USB type-c chargers!

CapsAdmin• 3 years ago

There is also a constant light vibration when you run your fingers lightly along the body. It's quite Shocking that this is apparently "normal". None of this happens when it's running on battery.

I always assumed that was just because the surface has a strange microscopic pattern. I don't have one now, but I believe it only happens in one direction.

oakwhiz2• 3 years ago

It's due to non-isolated converters where an EMI filter is a part of the line side using X/Y capacitors to cross over. The device isn't solidly grounded but it's also not totally floating either. There's some leakage across it.

callesgg5• 3 years ago

That is not the MacBook itself, it is the power adapter not having a ground pin.

The power adapter extension cord has a ground pin, you can use the extension cord if you want to ground the computer.

themitigating• 3 years ago

Because the transformer doesn't have a metal case and once the voltage is lowered at the transformer the danger of electrical shock is reduced (as in the effects of it) so there's no reason to ground the laptop chassis.

goodpoint• 3 years ago

*its

jnpnj• 3 years ago

Grounding issues on metal chassis is so strange. Creates a buzzing layer under you skin. Quite surprising the first time.

cultofmetatron• 3 years ago

omg I thought I was the only one. Had this problem persistently when I was at a guest house in the phillipines. I figured it couldn't be safe or good for my laptop but a guy's gotta get paid...

sph• 3 years ago

I have that issue when charging my iPad as well

qikInNdOutReply• 3 years ago

Finally middle management gets to use those cattle prods. Its suprise stimulation time.. while we are at it, lets brand those asses in seats. Yeehaw..

amelius• 3 years ago

How long can you keep doing this?

poulpy123• 3 years ago

electric and/or magnetic stimulation starts to be used to treat depression in treatment resistant patients

bilekas3• 3 years ago

I would imagine the brain is responding to an abnormality and releases some stimulant to get you to figure out what's going on.

Clever idea but I really wonder the long term effects!

ilostmyshoes• 3 years ago

It depends on the circuit being stimulated but yes there is usually some sort of adaptation with enough exposures to a stimulus over a period of time. Long enough breaks can prevent it though

mattkrause8• 3 years ago

The current thinking is that it’s an electrical effect.

Brain activity consists of intricate patterns of electrical activity, created as neurons process and transmit information. tACS, the method used here, creates electric fields inside the head, which interacts with neurons’ own electrical activity. The effects are pretty subtle—-it can’t make a neuron spike on its own and thus release neurotransmitter. However, it can shift the timing of spikes caused by its “natural” activity”, and thus change those activity patterns.

(My group looks at this in animal and computational models, where we can measure this directly).

bilekas3• 3 years ago

However, it can shift the timing of spikes caused by its “natural” activity”, and thus change those activity patterns.

That's a super cool activity, sounds so simple to manipulate your brain into the 'productive' behavior.

tropsis2• 3 years ago

I suffer from mental and physical effort aversion (avolition), I wonder if this could be helpful for me.

wincy2• 3 years ago

I find amphetamines works pretty well for me.

tropsis2• 3 years ago

I can't take amphetamines, because I suffered three psychotic episodes in the past.

ada1981• 3 years ago

Curious if this is similar to the effect of binaural auditory stimulation.

I use Brain.fm for focus and its great.

mattkrause8• 3 years ago

If you’re curious about how this sort of brain stimulation works, I just published a fun little explainer in PLOS Biology.

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

58x145• 3 years ago

Thank you for this! I’m reading now and you strike a nice balance (for me at least) between simple explanations and deeper science.

Do you have any suggested introductory reading material for those interested in neuroscience? More detailed and technical than pop science-esq, without requiring subject matter expertise?

mattkrause8• 3 years ago

Thanks-that's what we were aiming for!

Are you interested in anything specific? Neuroscience is an absolutely massive field. At one end of my department, some folks are poking at the atomic structure of individual ion channels; at the other, people are looking at how social factors affect the brain and vice versa. It's hard to think of any one book that does it all justice.

On the other hand, there's been a flood of interesting books lately, so there's almost certainly something for you. Since you're on HN, you might like Grace Lindsay's Models of the Mind. It's about using math and physics to probe the brain, but it's a nice light read that focuses on analogies; no walls of impenetrable equations. If you like this, there are a ton of books that dive more deeply into the math to read next.

I've heard good things about Luiz Pessoa's The Entangled Brain, but haven't read it. It's more general neuroscience than focused on applications of math. People love Gyorgy Buzsaki's books Rhythms of the Brain and The Brain from Inside Out. I couldn't really get into them, in part because he was--loudly--wrong about the brain stim stuff in that article--but that's more of a personal beef.

If you want something more like a textbook, the standard is Kandel's Principles of Neural Science. It touches on almost everything, though often not in a particularly exciting or up-to-date way. It's not the worst book for a class, but it'd be a slog to power through in bed. Instead, I'd recommend Levitan and Kaczmarek's The Neuron: Cell and Molecular Biology. It covers a bit less (individual cells up through small neural networks), but I like the writing a lot more.

Another approach might be some hybrid science-biographies. These include Lessons from the Lobster, which is about Eve Marder and her work. The lobster stomach is a really fascinating circuit: seemingly simple, but capable of really complex behavior. The principles she worked out there have huge implications for more complex brains (like ours). Similarly, Brain and Visual Perception is about how David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel worked out some of the circuits in primary visual cortex--and won the Nobel Prize. I have not read Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, but people seem to like it. It's about a brain anatomist realizing that she's having a stroke. Oliver Sacks' books are probably the standard bearer in this category. Some of the explanations are a bit dated, especially in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (understandable, as it's from 1985), but the descriptions of the symptoms are fascinating.

Some anti-recommendations: I'd avoid Rodger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind. It did get me interested in moving from CS to Neuro, but its explanations are, to put it EXTREMELY charitably, not very mainstream. Jeff Hawkin's book is not nearly as far out there, but his ideas also don't have a lot of traction. Stephen Grossberg's stuff is very polarizing: some ideas are very interesting, but also sometimes presented in ways that don't tie in well with the rest of the field, so I wouldn't start there.

That's a random walk through my reading list! If you're interested in a particular niche, let me know. There's also cool stuff about drugs, weird animals, sensation, etc...

throwaway4aday4• 3 years ago

What's your opinion on consumer devices like this for tDCS? https://caputron.com/products/brain-premier?variant=42105224...

mattkrause8• 3 years ago

The simulator itself is fairly simple. At its core, it's just a constant-current source. Make sure that it's safe: isolated from the mains, delivers the right amount of current, and ideally has some cut-offs in case the electrodes come loose (you don't want it to keep upping the voltage if there's a marginal connection).

The bigger question is what you want to use it for. I think we've got a ways to go before we have "fire-and-forget" procedure work for everybody. Depending on where/how/when you stimulate, it's sometimes possible to produce the exact opposite of your intended effect. One of the headsets marketed for improving gaming had a big dust-up over that.

mavu• 3 years ago

So tasing people, makes them do stuff. got it.

mattkrause8• 3 years ago

Nah, it's literally thousands of times weaker; just on the threshold of perception.

58x145• 3 years ago

I spent ~$600 a few years back to buy a thoroughly tested TES device (https://www.platoscience.com/en-us/pages/product) and I only ended up using it a handful of times for novelty purposes.

My prescribed medication (little orange footballs) regularly helps me overcome executive function inhibition, and I was hoping this tech could work as an alternative or supplement.

There’s a lot of friction in setting up a session, because in order to have proper electrical conductivity, these devices typically require you to add some contact pads soaked in salt water.

It becomes noticeably unpleasant for me after only a minute or two - a very particular hybrid sensation between heat and… tingling? Pinching?

Combined with salt water dripping down my face, the initial appeal faded quickly.

I’d like to try it again, but it’s been sitting in a drawer for years, so I wonder if the battery hasn’t degraded. I don’t think I’d like to replace any components on such a device…

sbayeta• 3 years ago

Just an idea, hope it's not stupid: Maybe you can get/prepare some kind if gel solution similar to what they use when doing an electrocardiogram?

Maybe that would make the experience a little better.

58x145• 3 years ago

A great suggestion, thank you. The issue with this approach is that I have longer hair and a gel may have more difficulty bridging contact between the device and my scalp, plus it likely requires more effort to clean up. I might look into this.

mattkrause8• 3 years ago

Yup! That's what we do in my lab.

SignaGel is a conductive gel. It'll mostly stay in place and stays wet a lot longer than the sponges, but it is a little gross. Get it from a medical supplier rather than Amazon, where the individual tubes are massively overpriced. You might also be interested in 10-20 paste, which is a sticky conductive putty. It's a bit more expensive, but it stays put. Instead of the bands, you can also try a neoprene "swimcap" style holder.

Some of the tingling is unavoidable--the currents are driving fibers in the skin--but you can do a few things to reduce it. First, make sure there's good contact with the scalp: fully coat/saturate the electrodes and make sure they're pressed tight. The lower the impedance, the better. because the "dose" is specified in terms of current and you want to use as little voltage as possible to deliver that. Second, gradually ramp up the current instead of just switching it on/off. The sensation will diminish a bit over time anyway, so slowly increasing the current will make it more bearable. The difference between on/off and a 30 second ramp is really striking! We've used a topical anesthetic to block sensations, but it's a giant pain--it takes an hour to kick in and you need to tightly cover it too. Finally, be careful because you can burn the skin!

testemailfordg2• 3 years ago

Probably something Neuralink can assist with in future...Zap the brain with electrical stimulation if brain is not willing to engage in mental effort...

cypherpunks01• 3 years ago

I recently got an Alpha-Stim CES device for anxiety, it's used by people to treat insomnia and depression as well. The research is still not enough to make a strong determination on effectiveness of these and I figured it would mainly be a placebo device, but actually I have tried it for the past weeks and found it has helped treat anxiety - a similar impact to taking a low dose of Ativan for me.

It doesn't directly have long term impacts, but I find reducing anxiety in the moment can build up memory for better mental practices in the future. I use it for a 40 minute session 2-3 times a week, especially if things are feeling really difficult when I might ordinarily need to take an anti anxiety med. The effects do last longer then the treatment duration, many hours afterwards for me. It can help me meditate as well, increasing my focus and reducing mental distractions a bit. If you turn it up too high, it starts to give you a dizzy/vertigo feeling, the recommendation is to run it just below that level.

Anyone else have experience with the Alpha-Stim or other CES/tDCS/tACS devices for mental health? I wish the nice research devices like in the study were available to the public, there are a ton of settings and modes they are able to test in studies like this, that you'd have to buy a dozen consumer devices of questionable quality to get any similar flexibility.

58x145• 3 years ago

I mentioned my experience in another thread - a few years back when I was researching devices, the PlatoWorks TDCS/TES device seemed to have a higher level of scientific rigor behind it than many of the other consumer devices available online.

seydor• 3 years ago

That is an important addition to our VR headsets

swader999• 3 years ago

Where do I tape on the wires?

ChrisMarshallNY• 3 years ago

Time to develop thinking caps!

https://youtu.be/SR5BfQ4rEqQ?t=18

Electrical stimulation can boost brain's willingness to engage in mental effort

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