[ExI] tms

[Anders Sandberg]

I didn't know there were people who did not know about TMS :-)

When I first looked at it back in 2006, it looked like it had too low 
effect size to be worthwhile. Since then a fair number of experiments 
have demonstrated interesting and potentially useful effects. Also, 
direct current stimulation (DCS) also seems to work, as does a bunch of 
related treatments. I review some of the methods in:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230564923_Non-pharmacological_cognitive_enhancement

The simplicity has led to a fair number of amateurs experimenting, 
causing concerns among the researchers in the field.


On 2016-07-10 15:45, spike wrote:
>
> Hey cool, I just saw something interesting.
>
> NPR has an article about an experimental treatment for Aspergers 
> called transcranial magnetic stimulation.  I didn’t take interest in 
> this because of Aspergers (I can relate however…  {8^D)  but rather 
> this business of stimulating an area of the brain externally.  That 
> just sounds wicked cool.  Skip down to about the middle of the article 
> where they show the TMS graphic:
>
> http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/08/484812170/what-an-hour-of-emotion-makes-visible?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160710&utm_campaign=bestofnpr&utm_term=nprnews
>
> Is that cool or what?
>
> OK, there was a discussion a few days ago on how to measure cognitive 
> enhancement to know if some medication effective, but there are plenty 
> of us who will not eat pills, for good reasons: if it does something 
> bad, you can’t turn it off immediately.  But this thing we can.
>
> Idea: iPad app called Chess Free.  Its name suggests the cost.  It has 
> a setting where you can play blitz, which is five minutes for the game 
> with a five second increment per move, a great way to measure the 
> results of cranial activity realtime.  So if you play chess you can 
> measure your performance in realtime with that app, then switch on 
> this device, see if you start to whoop some silicon ass.  Move it 
> around to different parts of the skull, see if you can come up with 
> some cool ideas over the board.
>
> Of course you know what will happen if it works: everybody will soon 
> be seen walking around with odd looking hats with wires and things 
> like the one the mad scientist used to switch the brains of a chicken 
> with Bugs Bunny.  Then of course some yahoo will put it next to his 
> other brain.  Then if that works, the yahoos will have them in both 
> places, and then we need a backpack to carry the batteries and then 
> our fashions will really start to look even stranger than guys wearing 
> their pants down around their knees.
>
> Where can we get one of these TMS machines?  I would try it.  I don’t 
> want to risk accidentally curing my mild case of Aspergers however.  I 
> like me this way.  If that went away it risks my hard-earned geek 
> credentials.  If it works, I might even try putting a second one up 
> against my head and playing chess.
>
> spike
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20160710/637c7e27/attachment.html>