tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/transcranial-direct-current-stimulation-25313/articlesTranscranial direct current stimulation – The Conversation2017-05-16T00:58:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/775842017-05-16T00:58:02Z2017-05-16T00:58:02ZElectrically stimulating your brain can boost memory – but here’s one reason it doesn’t always work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169165/original/file-20170512-3682-f4tcye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=290%2C0%2C2350%2C1765&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is electrical pulse to the brain your favorite memory enhancer?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/airmanmagazine/33376636056">U.S. Air Force photo by J.M. Eddins Jr.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first time I heard that shooting electrical currents across your brain can boost learning, I thought it was a joke.</p>
<p>But evidence is mounting. According to a handful of studies, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the poster child of brain stimulation, is a bona fide cognitive booster: By directly tinkering with the brain’s electrical field, some research has found that tDCS <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2012.03.012">enhances creativity</a>, bolsters <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4022-x">spatial</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.045">math learning</a> and even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20098">language aquisition</a> – sometimes <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.045">weeks after the initial zap</a>. </p>
<p>For those eager to give their own brains a boost, this is good news. <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/">Various communities</a> have sprung up to share tips and tricks on how to test the technique on themselves, often using self-rigged stimulators powered by 9-volt batteries. </p>
<p>Scientists and brain enthusiasts aren’t the only people interested. The military has also been <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1164793/darpa-funds-brain-stimulation-research-to-speed-learning/">eager to support</a> projects involving brain stimulation with the hope that the technology could one day be used to help soldiers suffering from combat-induced memory loss.</p>
<p>But here’s the catch: The end results are inconsistent at best. While some people swear by the positive effects anecdotally, others report nothing but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2014.10.015">a nasty scalp burn</a> from the electrodes.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2015.01.400">meta-analysis covering over 20 studies</a>, a team from Australia found no significant effects of tDCS on memory. Similar disparities pop up for <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.007">other brain stimulation techniques</a>. It’s not that brain stimulation isn’t doing anything – it just doesn’t seem to be doing something consistently across a diverse population. So what gives? </p>
<p>It looks like timing is everything. </p>
<h2>When the zap comes is crucial</h2>
<p>We all have good days when your brain feels sharp and bad days when the “brain fog” never lifts. This led scientists to wonder: Because electrical stimulation directly regulates the activity of the brain’s neural networks, what if it gives them a boost when they’re faltering, but conversely disrupts their activity when already performing at peak? </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.03.028">a new study</a> published in “Current Biology,” researchers tested the idea using the most direct type of brain stimulation – electrodes implanted into the brain. Compared to tDCS, which delivers currents through electrodes on the scalp, implanted ones allow much higher precision in controlling which brain region to target and when.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/169021/original/file-20170511-32610-1f9rj3o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blue dots indicate overall electrode placement in the new study from the University of Pennsylvania; the yellow dot (top-right corner) is the electrode used to stimulate the subject’s brain to increase memory performance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://news.upenn.edu/news/penn-researchers-show-brain-stimulation-restores-memory-during-lapses">Joel Stein and Youssef Ezzyat</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The team collaborated with a precious resource: epilepsy patients who already have electrodes implanted into their hippocampi and surrounding areas. These brain regions are crucial for memories about sequences, spaces and life events. The electrodes serve a double purpose: They both record brain activity and deliver electrical pulses. </p>
<p>The researchers monitored the overall brain activity of 102 epilepsy patients as they memorized 25 lists of a dozen unrelated words and tried to recall them later on.</p>
<p>For each word, the researchers used the corresponding brain activity pattern to train a type of software called a classifier. In this way, for each patient the classifier eventually learned what types of brain activity preceded successfully remembering a word, and what predicted failed recall. Using this method, the scientist objectively classified a “foggy” brain state as the pattern of brain activity that preceded an inability to remember the word, while the pattern of activity common before successfully recalling is characteristic of being on the ball.</p>
<p>Next, in the quarter of patients for whom the classifier performed above chance, the researchers zapped their brains as they memorized and recalled a new list of words. As a control, they also measured memory performance without any stimulation, and the patients were asked whether they could tell when the electrodes were on (they couldn’t). </p>
<p>Here’s what they found: when the zap came before a low, foggy brain state, the patients scored roughly 12 to 13 percent higher than usual on the recall task. But if they were already in a high-performance state, quite the opposite occurred. Then the electrical pulse impaired performance by 15 to 20 percent and disrupted the brain’s encoding activity – that is, actually making memories.</p>
<h2>Moving beyond random stimulation</h2>
<p>This study is notably different from those before. Rather than indiscriminately zapping the brain, the researchers showed that the brain state at the time of memory encoding determines whether brain stimulation helps or hinders. It’s an invaluable insight for future studies that try to tease apart the effects of brain stimulation on memory.</p>
<p>The next big challenge is to incorporate these findings into brain stimulation trials, preferably using noninvasive technologies. The finding that brain activity can predict recall is promising and builds upon previous research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4039-12.2013">linking brain states to successful learning</a>. These studies may be leveraged to help design “smart” brain stimulators. </p>
<p>For example: Picture a closed-loop system, where a cap embedded with electrodes measures brain activity using EEG or other methods. Then the data go to a control box to determine the brain state. When the controller detects a low functioning state, it signals the tDCS or other stimulator to give a well-timed zap, thus boosting learning without explicit input from the user.</p>
<p>Of course, many questions remain before such a stimulator becomes reality. What are the optimal number and strength of electrical pulses that best bolster learning? Where should we place the electrodes for best effect? And what about unintended consequences? A previous study found that boosting learning may actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4927-12.2013">impair a person’s ability to automate that skill</a> – quickly and effortlessly perform it – later on. What other hidden costs of brain stimulation are we missing?</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’ll ever be comfortable with the idea of zapping my brain. But this new study and the many others sure to follow give me more confidence: If I do take the leap into electrical memory enhancement, it’ll be based on data, not on anecdotes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelly Fan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tinkering with the brain’s electrical field shows tantalizing promise for boosting memory, but it doesn’t always work. A new study offers one reason why.Shelly Fan, Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroscience, University of California, San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678582016-11-06T20:26:01Z2016-11-06T20:26:01ZInformation before regulation to make amateur brain stimulation safer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144320/original/image-20161103-25353-t3eb2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Talk to users of electronic brain stimulation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock OH studio image gallery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the comfort of their own home, an unknown number of people are electrically stimulating their brains.</p>
<p>People are doing it because they believe it can boost mental agility, help with disorders such as depression, or just for the pleasure of exploring a scientific frontier outside the constraints of professional science.</p>
<p>And apparently some computer <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-stimulation-is-getting-popular-with-gamers-is-it-time-to-regulate-it-66845">gamers are doing it</a> because they think it can improve their performance.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/bidm-nwa070816.php">home brain stimulation is opposed</a> by most neuroscientists on safety grounds. That has helped create a knowledge vacuum that leaves brain stimulation enthusiasts piecing together information on which devices to purchase, and how to use them, from whatever online sources they can find, most often from other home users.</p>
<p>It’s the Wild West of neuroscience. And that needs to change.</p>
<h2>Methods of stimulation</h2>
<p>Whether home users <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/buzz-around-brain-stimulation">get the brain boost they seek</a> is unclear. One technique, TMS or transcranial magnetic stimulation, is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for clinical treatment of <a href="http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm378608.htm">migrane headaches</a> and <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/02/magnets.aspx">severe depression</a>. Large trials are also planned for autism, schizophrenia and stroke.</p>
<p>But the jury is out on the go-to technique for home use which is tDCS, or transcranial direct-current stimulation. Lab tests suggest that tDCS changes language and maths abilities, attention, video gaming ability (part of its popular appeal) and other cognitive skills, but more evidence is needed to be sure.</p>
<p>And here’s the rub. If electrical stimulation does boost brain function, it can also harm it. That’s why brain researchers are careful to limit risk by being conservative about how long and how often they stimulate someone’s brain. Home users won’t be so cautious, especially without access to information.</p>
<p>The research community’s response to home use is to draw attention in carefully-couched terms to its dangers, still largely unknown but generally considered likely to be slight, such as in this <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24689/full">open letter in the Annals of Neurology</a>.</p>
<p>Or researchers’ reaction is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/brain-stimulation-is-getting-popular-with-gamers-is-it-time-to-regulate-it-66845">ask for more regulation</a>.</p>
<h2>Regulations</h2>
<p>Consumer brain stimulation devices, which can be legally purchased online, are already regulated by the general consumer rules set out by the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-protection/buying-safe-products">Australian Competition and Consumer Commission</a> and in the US by the <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-protection/buying-safe-products">Consumer Product Safety Commission</a>.</p>
<p>But overzealous regulation has the potential to do harm as well as prevent it. It could, for example, slow the development of these devices to treat mental health disorders, an area in which there is a pressing need for effective therapies and where brain stimulation shows much promise.</p>
<p>The consumer market for brain stimulation devices provides an opportunity to optimise design. John Reppas, director of public policy at the Neurotechnology Industry Association, told the US Food and Drug Administration meeting <a href="http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/NewsEvents/WorkshopsConferences/UCM480906.pdf">Noninvasive Neurostimulation Devices and Cognitive Function</a> last year:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It [may also] allows an eventual next-generation medical grade product to be developed and financed a lot more quickly […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then there’s the case for personal autonomy. Allowing adults to learn more about their own bodies and brains, even to alter their function, is not necessarily bad. We allow adults to change body and brain function with caffeine, alcohol, exercise, and learning. Is the use of electrical brain stimulation devices different?</p>
<h2>Talk to the users</h2>
<p>We suggest a more pragmatic approach to harm reduction. Don’t stop with just a warning to home users, or calls for greater regulation.</p>
<p>Why not also work with home users to understand what drives them, to test the devices they use, and fill the information void with scientist-sanctioned safety guidelines and easily-accessible translations of new findings. These would include the limitations and side-effects.</p>
<p>Nick Davis, a neuroscientist at Manchester Metropolitan University, <a href="http://jlb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/05/jlb.lsw013.full">goes further</a> to suggest harnessing this “pool of creative and engaged self-experimenters [to] shape and inform the future uses of tDCS”.</p>
<p>Health agencies could also step in with a similar approach to that taken to <a href="https://theconversation.com/stem-cell-tourism-exploits-people-by-marketing-hope-29146">stem cell tourism</a>, in which people with life-limiting illnesses travel overseas for what are often unproven therapies. </p>
<p>Stem cell tourism and lounge room brain stimulation share similarities. In both cases, users have moved a new technology out of the lab before the evidence is in.</p>
<p>Both technologies promise game-changing treatments for intractable health problems, firing a scientific optimism that has gushed into public consciousness, driving demand for an under-developed technology.</p>
<p>When first faced with stem cell tourism, scientists tended to protest its foolishness. But after listening more carefully to the tourists to understand what was driving them (in a nutshell, no other options), some changed tack.</p>
<p>They brought together stem cell scientists, people who wanted the technology in its unbaked state, and those who wanted it developed and approved first. They talked through issues of <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9781137470423">safety, evidence, autonomy and hope</a>.</p>
<p>Their efforts culminated in advice from various bodies, including the National Health and Medical Research Council <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/rm001a_stem_cell_treatments_faq_131220.pdf">providing information</a>, to assist people contemplating stem cell tourism. Why not a similar approach to the lounge room use of brain stimulation devices?</p>
<p>Brain stimulation is cheap, accessible and potentially of interest to anyone who ever wished they could think faster, or at least better than their colleagues, their ageing self, their class mates or their competitors.</p>
<p>Nobody knows how many people currently home use, or who they are. Recreational gamers are clearly not the whole story. We know of people who home use in attempts to treat age-related cognitive decline and severe, uncontrolled mental disorders.</p>
<p>What we do know is that if the brain stimulation makes good on its early promise those numbers will surely grow, never mind how many cautious warnings and calls for greater regulation are issued.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Peter Simpson-Young, who is a masters student of health technology innovation at University of Sydney, was a co-author on this article. He has used brain stimulation at home.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Nowak is director of The Brain Dialogue, an initiative of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function. She is also principal at Rachel Nowak and Associates, a consultancy working to connect universities, industry, and society. </span></em></p>People who electrically stimulate their brains at home need more information to do it safely… and neuroscience needs to find out more about how and why they do it.Rachel Nowak, Director, The Brain Dialogue, ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/652152016-09-14T10:05:33Z2016-09-14T10:05:33ZConsidering ethics now before radically new brain technologies get away from us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137669/original/image-20160913-4955-1hxmw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Now's the time to think about what we're getting into with neurotechnologies.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=133182821">Brain image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine infusing thousands of wireless devices into your brain, and using them to both monitor its activity and directly influence its actions. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and for the moment it still is – but possibly not for long.</p>
<p>Brain research is on a roll at the moment. And as it converges with advances in science and technology more broadly, it’s transforming what we are likely to be able to achieve in the near future. </p>
<p>Spurring the field on is the promise of more effective treatments for debilitating neurological and psychological disorders such as <a href="http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/epilepsy/epilepsy.htm">epilepsy</a>, <a href="http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/parkinsons_disease/parkinsons_disease.htm">Parkinson’s disease</a> and <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression/index.shtml">depression</a>. But new brain technologies will increasingly have the potential to alter how someone thinks, feels, behaves and even perceives themselves and others around them – and not necessarily in ways that are within their control or with their consent.</p>
<p>This is where things begin to get ethically uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Because of concerns like these, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) are <a href="http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Activities/Research/NeuroForum/2016-SEP-15.aspx">cohosting a meeting of experts this week</a> on responsible innovation in brain science.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Berkeley’s ‘neural dust’ sensors are one of the latest neurotech advances.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Where are neurotechnologies now?</h2>
<p>Brain research is intimately entwined with advances in the “neurotechnologies” that not only help us study the brain’s inner workings, but also transform the ways we can interact with and influence it.</p>
<p>For example, researchers at the University of California Berkeley recently <a href="http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/08/03/sprinkling-of-neural-dust-opens-door-to-electroceuticals/">published the first in-animal trials of what they called “neural dust”</a> – implanted millimeter-sized sensors. They inserted the sensors in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.06.034">the nerves and muscles of rats</a>, showing that these miniature wirelessly powered and connected sensors can monitor neural activity. The long-term aim, though, is to introduce thousands of neural dust particles <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.2196">into human brains</a>.</p>
<p>The UC Berkeley sensors are still relatively large, on par with a coarse piece of sand, and just report on what’s happening around them. Yet advances in nanoscale fabrication are likely to enable their further miniaturization. (The researchers estimate they could be made <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.2196">thinner than a human hair</a>.) And in the future, combining them with technologies like <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/optogenetics-controlling/">optogenetics</a> – using light to stimulate genetically modified neurons – could enable wireless, localized brain interrogation and control.</p>
<p>Used in this way, future generations of neural dust could transform how chronic neurological disorders are managed. They could also enable hardwired brain-computer interfaces (the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.2196">original motivation behind this research</a>), or even be used to enhance cognitive ability and modify behavior.</p>
<p>In 2013, President Obama launched the multi-year, multi-million dollar <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/BRAIN">U.S. BRAIN Initiative</a> (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). The same year, the European Commission launched the <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/">Human Brain Project</a>, focusing on advancing brain research, cognitive neuroscience and brain-inspired computing. There are also active brain research initiatives in <a href="https://www.sfn.org/news-and-calendar/neuroscience-quarterly/spring-2016/china-qa">China</a>, <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1668/20140310">Japan</a>, <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2016/05/30/0504000000AEN20160530008200320.html">Korea</a>, <a href="http://www.labman.org/">Latin America</a>, <a href="http://israelbrain.org/">Israel</a>, <a href="http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/">Switzerland</a>, <a href="http://www.braincanada.ca/">Canada</a> and even <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21870466">Cuba</a>.</p>
<p>Together, these represent an emerging and globally coordinated effort to not only better understand how the brain works, but to find new ways of controlling and enhancing it (in particular in disease treatment and prevention); to interface with it; and to build computers and other artificial systems that are inspired by it.</p>
<h2>Cutting-edge tech comes with ethical questions</h2>
<p>This week’s <a href="http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Activities/Research/NeuroForum/2016-SEP-15.aspx">NAS workshop</a> – organized by the <a href="https://www.innovationpolicyplatform.org/project-emerging-technologies-and-brain-oecd-bnct">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development</a> and supported by the National Science Foundation and my home institution of Arizona State University – isn’t the first gathering of experts to discuss the ethics of brain technologies. In fact there’s already an active international community of experts addressing “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroethics">neuroethics</a>.”</p>
<p>Many of these scientific initiatives do have a prominent ethics component. The U.S. BRAIN initiative for example includes a <a href="https://www.braininitiative.nih.gov/about/newg.htm">Neuroethics Workgroup</a>, while the E.C. Human Brain Project is using an <a href="https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/2016-ethics">Ethics Map</a> to guide research and development. These and others are grappling with the formidable challenges of developing future neurotechnologies responsibly.</p>
<p>It’s against this backdrop that the NAS workshop sets out to better understand the social and ethical opportunities and challenges emerging from global brain research and neurotechnologies. A goal is to identify ways of ensuring these technologies are developed in ways that are responsive to social needs, desires and concerns. And it comes at a time when brain research is beginning to open up radical new possibilities that were far beyond our grasp just a few years ago.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137650/original/image-20160913-4936-dt595m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Transcranial magnetic stimulation uses a powerful and rapidly changing electrical current to excite neural processes in the brain, similar to direct stimulation with electrodes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Wassermann, M.D.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In 2010, for instance, researchers at MIT demonstrated that Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS – a noninvasive neurotechnology – <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2010/moral-control-0330">could temporarily alter someone’s moral judgment</a>. Another noninvasive technique called <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/01/read-zapping-brain/">transcranial Direct Current Stimulation</a> (tDCS) delivers low-level electrical currents to the brain via electrodes on the scalp; it’s being explored as a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3270156/">treatment for clinical conditions from depression to chronic pain</a> – while already being used in <a href="http://foc.us/">consumer products</a> and by <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-weird-world-of-brain-hacking-1447096569">do-it-yourselfers</a> to allegedly self-induce changes in mental state and ability.</p>
<p>Crude as current capabilities using TMS and tDCS are, they are forcing people to think about the responsible development and use of technologies which have the ability to potentially change behavior, personality and thinking ability, at the flick of a switch. And the ethical questions they raise are far from straightforward.</p>
<p>For instance, should students be allowed to take exams while using tDCS? Should teachers be able to use tDCS in the classroom? Should TMS be used to prevent a soldier’s moral judgment from interfering with military operations?</p>
<p>These and similar questions grapple with what is already possible. Complex as they are, they pale against the challenges emerging neurotechnologies are likely to raise.</p>
<h2>Preparing now for what’s to come</h2>
<p>As research leads to an increasingly sophisticated and fine-grained understanding of how our brains function, related neurotechnologies are likely to become equally sophisticated. As they do, our abilities to precisely control function, thinking, behavior and personality, will extend far beyond what is currently possible.</p>
<p>To get a sense of the emerging ethical and social challenges such capabilities potentially raise, consider this speculative near-future scenario:</p>
<p>Imagine that in a few years’ time, the UC Berkeley neural dust has been successfully miniaturized and combined with optogenetics, allowing thousands of micrometer-sized devices to be seeded through someone’s brain that are capable of monitoring and influencing localized brain functions. Now imagine this network of neural transceivers is wirelessly connected to an external computer, and from there, to the internet.</p>
<p>Such a network – a crude foreshadowing of science fiction author <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5807106.Iain_M_Banks">Iain M. Banks</a>’ “neural lace” (a concept that has <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-neural-lace-ai-artificial-intelligence-465638">already grabbed the attention of Elon Musk</a>) – would revolutionize the detection and treatment of neurological conditions, potentially improving quality of life for millions of people. It would enable external devices to be controlled through thought, effectively integrating networked brains into the Internet of Things. It could help overcome restricted physical abilities for some people. And it would potentially provide unprecedented levels of cognitive enhancement, by allowing people to interface directly with cloud-based artificial intelligence and other online systems. </p>
<p>Think Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Echo hardwired into your brain, and you begin to get the idea.</p>
<p>Yet this neurotech – which is almost within reach of current technological capabilities – would not be risk-free. These risks could be social – a growing socioeconomic divide perhaps between those who are neuro-enhanced and those who are not. Or they could be related to privacy and autonomy – maybe the ability of employers and law enforcement to monitor, and even alter, thoughts and feelings. The innovation might threaten personal well-being and societal cohesion through (hypothetical) cyber substance abuse, where direct-to-brain code replaces psychoactive substances. It could make users highly vulnerable to neurological cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Of course, predicting and responding to possible future risks is fraught with difficulties, and depends as much on who considers what a risk (and to whom) as it does the capabilities of emerging technologies to do harm. Yet it’s hard to avoid the likely disruptive potential of near-future neurotechnologies. Thus the urgent need to address – as a society – what we want the future of brain technologies to look like.</p>
<p>Moving forward, the ethical and responsible development of emerging brain technologies will require new thinking, along with considerable investment, in what might go wrong, and how to avoid it. Here, we can learn from thinking about responsible and ethical innovation that has come to light around <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asilomar_Conference_on_Recombinant_DNA">recombinant DNA</a>, <a href="https://cns.asu.edu/viri">nanotechnology</a>, <a href="https://experimentearth.org/">geoengineering</a> and other cutting-edge areas of science and technology. </p>
<p>To develop future brain technologies both successfully and responsibly, we need to do so in ways that avoid potential pitfalls while not stifling innovation. We need approaches that ensure ordinary people can easily find out how these technologies might affect their lives – and they must have a say in how they’re used.</p>
<p>All this won’t necessarily be easy – responsible innovation rarely is. But through initiatives like this week’s NAS workshop and others, we have the opportunity to develop brain technologies that are profoundly beneficial, without getting caught up in an ethical minefield.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maynard is a member of the ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society, which is co-organizing the September 15-16 workshop on responsible innovation in brain science. </span></em></p>How will neurotech evolve? An NAS workshop this week focuses on social and ethical opportunities and challenges we face both now and down the road.Andrew Maynard, Director, Risk Innovation Lab, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622392016-07-21T12:37:01Z2016-07-21T12:37:01ZStudy shows direct manipulation of brain can reverse effects of depression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131422/original/image-20160721-32615-dpffqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-432067909/stock-photo--d-illustration-neurons-cell-brain-on-science-background.html?src=VV5YIjNSTE_lBi9V0R4tsA-2-37">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Manipulating the brain has been a tool used in the treatment of mental illness for centuries, and treatments have often been controversial. From psychosurgery, including <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15629160">lobotomy and leucotomy</a>, to electro-convulsive therapy, which is still used to treat depression and psychotic illness today, more modern methods include <a href="http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/brain-stimulation-therapies/brain-stimulation-therapies.shtml">deep brain stimulation</a> and <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/home/ovc-20163795">transcranial magnetic stimulation</a>. </p>
<p>These direct interventions to the brain aim to relieve the symptoms of severe mental disorders, but are generally a last resort for sufferers or <a href="http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/repetitive-transcranial-magnetic-stimulation#2">used in the context of specialist clinical centres and research trials</a>.</p>
<p>We know that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2873772/">the brain undergoes changes when a person is depressed</a> or has a similar mood disorder. But part of the problem with neuroscientific research is that it is unclear whether these structural changes cause, or are caused by, the illness.</p>
<p>In an intriguing new study of depression published in the journal Neuron, researchers have investigated a <a href="http://bit.ly/29OTbQa">new direct intervention technique</a> to combat the symptoms and effects of depression. The team induced abnormal brain activity similar to depression in mice, and then manipulated various circuits of the brain to successfully control and reverse the effects. This suggests that brain changes could indeed be responsible for, and predate, the development of mental disorders. The implication is that with the right techniques, these changes could be reversed and so improve the patient’s mental disorder.</p>
<p>The new technique works by implanting electrodes in four key areas in the mouse’s brain – the prefrontal cortex, and three sub-areas of the limbic system: <a href="http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/a/aa042205a.htm">the nucleus accumbens, the ventral tegmental area and the amygdala</a>. By measuring electrical signals between these areas, neuroscientists were able to determine the functional connections between them and understand how these parts of the brain communicate with each other during normal brain activity. </p>
<p>The mice were then repeatedly exposed to chronic stress in the form of <a href="http://ilarjournal.oxfordjournals.org/content/55/2/221.full">“social defeat”</a>, which refers to losing a confrontation in a social setting, and is known to cause behaviours in animals similar to human depression. Previously observed connections between areas of the brain were actually altered by this stress, creating a “neural signature” of depression in the brain as the researchers recorded how the neural signalling changed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131408/original/image-20160721-32639-14e8h9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A World War I soldier being treated with an early analogue of ECT. ECT as we know it was developed in 1934.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bergonic_chair.jpg">Reeve041476</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Amazingly, the team were able to reverse this abnormality in the stressed mice’s brain activity. By stimulating a key area of brain tissue which interfaces with other nodes to form a network between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, normal communication between the areas of the brain was restored, returning the mice’s brain activity to their pre-stressed state. Their behaviour returned to normal and their stress disappeared.</p>
<p>This marks the first time a clear parallel has been demonstrated between a model of depression and a functional neural network.</p>
<p>What’s more, these findings are well backed-up. The prefrontal cortex and limbic areas are already <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25662294">known to be connected to depression in humans</a>. The amygdala is thought to have a key role in processing how important emotional material is to an individual, and how they respond to it – as the mice respond to their stressful situations. The wider limbic system and prefrontal cortex are important in regulating the impact that our emotions have on our cognitive abilities, such as memory, which causes us to behave differently when we are stressed or depressed. </p>
<p>The key element of this research is manipulating the connectivity of the prefrontal cortex, for which there is further evidence that reinforces the idea that this could be crucial to treating depression. Transcranial direct current stimulation, which manipulates the brain in a similar way, <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9308371&fileId=S1461145714000418">is already being trialled as a treatment for depression</a>, with results showing some evidence of a positive effect for sufferers.</p>
<p>Since this study concurs with what we know about mood disorders, this could certainly open up new avenues for treatment. Exploring these new causal links between stress, the brain’s neural connectivity and depression might make it possible to tweak brain circuitry in order to reverse whole mood disorders – at least in mice, to begin with.</p>
<p>The team’s findings not only help us to understand depression and other psychiatric illnesses, but also provide a powerful impetus toward developing treatments. Having a distinct “signature” of the mental disorder in question could be extremely useful as a reference point for new clinical treatments, and such a “screen” would facilitate <a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/207/4/283">more rapid and cost-effective testing of novel methods</a>, encouraging more innovation and investment in these neglected areas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Broome receives funding from the Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, The Wellcome Trust, the John Fell Fund at the University of Oxford, and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. He is series editor to the Oxford University Press book series, International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. He is also an associate and handling editor for the British Journal of Psychiatry.</span></em></p>Fresh hope for sufferers of mental illness.Matthew Broome, Senior Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Psychiatry and Faculty of Philosophy, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/552842016-03-16T13:41:05Z2016-03-16T13:41:05ZBrain stimulation in sport: is it fair?<p>If I tried to sell you a drink or a tablet, claiming it would make you run faster or improve your tennis serve, you would be suspicious. Taking a supplement to boost performance in sport feels like cheating, and it generally is.</p>
<p>However, new advances in neuroscience have pointed the way to performance enhancement by stimulating the activity of the brain. Mild electrical stimulation using electrodes placed on the head – called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, makes the brain more or less active, and may lead to long-lasting changes in brain processing.</p>
<p>Changing its processing has immense value in studying the brain, and particularly in treating brain disorders. tDCS may prove to be an effective treatment in conditions where a brain area is too active or not active enough, such as <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-011-6037-6">tinnitus</a>, or <a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/200/1/52.short">depression</a>.</p>
<p>Now, a company called Halo Neuroscience is selling a tDCS product called Halo Sport. The San Francisco-based firm <a href="https://www.haloneuro.com/">claims</a> that its “neuropriming” headset “accelerates gains in strength, explosiveness, and dexterity”. Is Halo Neuroscience justified in making this claim and will we see tDCS used in sports in the future?</p>
<h2>How could it work?</h2>
<p>Any time a person wants to make a movement, the brain sends a command to the muscles and reads information from the senses about the state of the body and the success or failure of that movement. As we practise a skill, the brain makes and strengthens connections across a wide network of brain areas. And when we make that skilled movement the motor network becomes active, and signals are sent to the muscles via the primary motor cortex, which is the region targeted by Halo Sport.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114303/original/image-20160308-22117-1lr2heg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Strengthening brain connections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=ilji619z1earm31kmaut&searchterm=athlete%20training&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=105840977">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Scientific studies have shown that interfering with the primary motor cortex generally makes movements worse, but in some cases enhancing activity here using brain stimulation may improve movements. There is hope that enhancing the motor network may aid in <a href="http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/128/3/490.short">recovery from stroke</a>. So far, most studies have looked at very limited movements such as pressing a button, or pressing on a force-sensitive device.</p>
<p>Is there any evidence that these improvements to small-scale, lab-based movements can translate into the sort of whole-body movement that we see in sports? Some researchers have <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-013-0027-z">raised this possibility</a>, but so far there is very little evidence and <a href="http://www.bodyinmind.org/tdcs-evidence-and-hype/">many people think</a> that the brain changes in tDCS are not strong enough to be noticeable in real-world settings.</p>
<h2>A sporting chance</h2>
<p>Clearly, breaking any of the rules or regulations of a sport would be cheating. But other forms of performance advantage nibble at the edges of these rules. The <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/">World Anti-Doping Agency</a> (WADA) maintains a code that defines the unacceptable forms of performance enhancement, either at the time of competition or during training, as well as a list of prohibited substances or methods. WADA does not ban tDCS or related methods in the current list. And one difficulty for anti-doping agencies, if they were to deem it to be unsporting, is that it is practically impossible to know if someone has used tDCS.</p>
<p>The idea of enhancing an otherwise healthy person is not restricted to sport. Using tDCS or other means to enhance cognitive abilities is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/put-down-the-smart-drugs-cognitive-enhancement-is-ethically-risky-business-27463">pressing problem for ethicists</a> who worry about the fairness of adding to the mind’s capacity.</p>
<h2>An electric Olympics?</h2>
<p>Will we see neuropriming at this summer’s <a href="http://www.rio2016.com/en/olympic-games">Olympic games</a>? It would be quite a statement for an athlete to walk onto the field wearing a tDCS headset. Could a swimmer or a tennis player take a private hit of current before leaving the locker room? And what of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_doping_cases_in_cycling">notoriously unclean</a> sport of cycling? Certainly cyclists have been keen experimenters with supposedly undetectable enhancers such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/lance-armstrong-charged-with-blood-doping-and-epo-use-so-how-do-they-work-7666">EPO or blood transfusions</a>.</p>
<p>The new Halo device brings tDCS into the reach of professionals and amateurs. It’s clearly time that sports bodies began to think about how we deal with neuroenhancement in sport.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s not clear if transcranial direct current stimulation can give sportspeople an unfair competitive advantage, but it’s time to give it serious consideration.Nick Davis, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.