4019 replies to this topic

[lostfalco]

I'm glad to see they finally got this web site up and working again. I'm the guy with the http://heelspurs.com/led.html page. If the 810 penetrates better, it might be best for deep injuries, but probably not by a large amount. 830 should have about the same penetration. If anyone comes by Montgomery AL I can let you try on my LED helmet if I haven't butchered it for parts. I'd be surprised if there is any more powerful "helmet" in the world, but if you place a gallon zip-lock bag of about 1 quart water on your head then place a $10 500 W halogen flood light from walmart within 1 to 3 inches, then you should get a lot more healthy light energy to your brain than my helmet. When compared in terms of the energy from LEDs and laser, this should provide about 20 watts in the "mitochondria-active" range (1/3 of the 500 W comes out as light like the sun, and about 1/4 of that light is in the healthy range of 4 wavelengths, and about 1/2 of that is wasted in not being on a specific wavelength like the LEDs). The water is to absorb heat. This assumes the head is bald or shaved. It covers about 200 cm^2 so the intensity should be 20/200 = 100 mW/cm^2 which I think is 3 times more intense as my helmet but with maybe 3 times less coverage. Maybe I will do 4 of these 500 W halogen surrounding my head with some water blocking contraption. I guess I could make and sell a copy of my helmet for $800. My costs are $0.15 per 830 nm LED 1,500 LEDs, $20 for 12 circuit boards, $20 high-power supply, $5 solder. Approx $300 in parts, 10 hours pain-in-the-butt work. Actually, I could have them pulse at 5 times the intensity using a 20% duty cycle. There are only specious theoretical reasons why this type of pulsing will help, and it has to be at a very fast 50 uS on, 250 uS off speed, if not 10 uS on and 50 uS off. In practice I am still trying to determine if pulsing is better. So far the result are promising. If I put a fan and box on each board with pulsing, it can be 3 times stronger so that treatment would be 5 minutes instead of 20 to 30 minutes ($1,600... I was and will be selling the boxes individually for $185). Lack of strength is where all LEDs devices on the market are failing.

Zawy! Thanks so much for coming on here man. Your site is seriously awesome. So much amazing info. I'm gonna sit down tomorrow and go back through it again.

So, as someone who is way more knowledgeable and experienced than I am, I wonder if you wouldn't mind sharing with us some of your personal experiences with lllt. I think most of us are especially interested in your experiences with transcranial lllt but I'd also love to hear your thoughts on using infrared light on other areas of the body. What have you found as you've experimented on yourself? What has your subjective experience been like? Have you noticed any measurable improvements? Any warnings?

Thanks again for all your time and effort. I'll try not to inundate your with questions you've already answered on your site but any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

[zawy]

I am not aware that LLLT has any advantage over LEDs. The cells do not seem to notice any difference between Laser's coherent light and LED light, and being on an exact wavelength does not seem to matter. The mitochondria just need single photons to activate, otherwise coherent might be important, but would not reach as deep in tissue because shallow tissue would be activated too well and block it. Same problem goes for pulsing, if it really works like I hope: it may not reach as deep. But if the light in either case is strong enough, then the shallow cells will be saturated and so it would not be a problem. I'm so sure of the non-benefits of LLLT over LEDs that I don't read up on it. There is to much money from device manufacturers causing too much garbage research to be publish in the most reputable journals so that the most money can be gained from patients to pay for the people marketing the devices and the research (the $1,000 devices themselves are typically $50 in parts). And as I keep telling everyone who calls me for advice and reads my paper and then promptly ignores me because they think LEDs are magical like lasers: it's hard to get anything better than a $7 halogen light with a zip lock bag of water blocking the heat. I use LED devices that are really powerful (which I can't sell) only because they are more convient to use than holding a hot halogen light and getting a zip lock bag of water, but when I need a lot of light quickly, I turn to the halogen. I do not wish to get a powerful laser because I have a two 2 W red LEDs with heat sink glued onto a little 2 AA battery pack and I place it right up against the skin ($10 verses $200). It would hard to find a laser (even if 830 nm penetrates better and works better per photon) that will work better for small areas.

I view red and infrared light as equally beneficial regardless of the source (sun, halogen, LED, or laser) as long as the intensity and area of coverage are equal. I think 830 nm is best, but maybe 660 nm is better, and in either case, you can just make the less beneficial wavelength have a stronger source. There is no theory that indicates the effects are different. They kick-start injured cells into making more ATP. I view red/near-infrared light therapy as beneficial overall as applying ice to injuries, keeping in mind that people greatly under-utilize the proper use of ice. More important than ice and light for joint injuries is a lot of stretching, movement, and careful strengthening. I use light mostly immediately after an injury, right before applying ice for 5 minutes, and then repeat once every 6 hours for a day or two. Immediately after injuries, ice is more important.

Concerning the head, I posted my experience to the web page. I've tried it about 4 times for 15 to 30 minutes. I find letting myself get hungry or eating 3 cups of blueberries improves my short-term thinking a lot more. The light just seems to make me relaxed and sleepy.

EDIT: i just looked at my web page and noticed my helmet is supposed to be about 40 W and calculated the area to be 4*70cm^2 => 50 mW/cm^2, so it's half as intense as the 500 W haolgen idea with 4 times the area of coverage.

Edited by zawy, 10 May 2013 - 04:07 PM.

[lostfalco]

Since there's so much conflicting info on the internet about pregnenolone dosing, I went to the university library near my apartment on Sunday and looked up the official dosing used in various studies. Here's what I found. All the numbers are daily amounts usually half taken in the morning and half taken at lunch.

Escalating dose: 100mg (2wks), 300mg (2wks), 500mg (4wks) (Marx, 2009)
100mg for 8 weeks or 500mg for 8 weeks (Savitz, 2010); 5 of the patients took 500mg daily for 3 years
30mg for 8 weeks or 200mg for 8 weeks (Ritsner, 2010)
There were no major side effects reported and the conclusion was that 500mg/day was well tolerated...(Marx, 2009); (Savitz, 2010); (Freeman, 1950); (McGavack, 1951).

Anyway, most of the beneficial effects were reported at the highest dose but obviously this is a very limited set of studies. Additionally, these almost all dealt with schizophrenia patients. Just thought I'd share.

[lostfalco]

I've also been re-examining oxygen as a nootropic in Con Stough and Andrew Scholey's (editors) "Advances in Natural Medicines, Nutraceuticals, and Neurocognition." Here's a direct quote from page 92, "Research has shown that oxygen administration leads to improved long-term memory and reaction times compared to a control group of normal air-breathing....oxygen administration appears to facilitate cognition most effectively for tasks with a higher cognitive load."

They then go on to reference this study by Chung in which 40% oxygen breathers improved accuracy scores in an addition task. http://www.ncbi.nlm....ubmed/18569150. Chung also has studies using 30% oxygen on pubmed.

Oxygen has also been shown to improve memory for shopping lists and faces. (Winder and Borrill, 1998).

The suggested dosing is 30 seconds to 3 minutes. This will increase blood oxygen for 4-5 minutes.

Anyway, I can't find anyone online who has tried this yet. Couldn't you buy a used oxygen bar or used scuba equipment and just put the mask on every ten minutes or so while studying? My biggest concern would be oxygen toxicity and lung damage but I can't find any info on the dangers of such a short duration of administration. I would appreciate any feedback from those of you with a background in this area. I'm pretty intrigued by the idea.

[lostfalco]

Also reading through a special edition from the journal Neuroscience called "Neuroactive Steroids: Focus on the Human Brain." Check it out here... http://www.sciencedi...06452211007081. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to go to a university library to read the full articles.

[lostfalco]

Alright, who wants to be first? Transcranial Ultrasound! http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22664271

Actually, the proposed resonating effects on intra-neuronal microtubules is absolutely fascinating. This has major potential.

[OpaqueMind]

So far I have been stimulating the frontal lobes with the vetrolaser, to interesting effect. However the effect is inconsistent, perhaps because of my persistent insomnia. On the rare days that I wake up rested and place the laser to my brain, I experience greater associational abilities and memories come with greater ease. I am also more awake, but I think I notice the difference more on the days I don't take it. Sometimes when I'm tired it seems to increase my zombification, but I emphasize seems because it most likely just boosts my awareness of my own tiredness while other brain areas remain understimulated.

I was wondering, lostfalco, have you considered stimulating other areas of the cortex via LLLT? Potentially we could stimulate the temporal lobe, the parietal lobe and the occipital lobe. If we could get the whole of the NeoCortex buzzing that'd give amazing results. Among some of the potential benefits could be greater declarative or long-term memory, better processing of visual memories, sensory input, language comprehension, motor control, spatial navigation, associations and a whole load of other stuff. If this actually works we could target pretty much every higher order brain function!!

As far as I'm aware, the structure of individual neurons tends not to differ very much across different brain regions of the neocortex, rather the differentiation of functionality is due to the variability in the connections between them. Since the safety has been established for certain minimalist protocols in relatively healthy individuals (ie anxious and depressed patients) while targeting the frontal lobes, it seems reasonable to infer the probable safety of the same protocol being targeted at other regions of the cortex. I understand this is uncharted territory, so I would appreciate any feedback from people with greater knowledge of neural structures. But since even a single dose of 4 minutes delivers appreciable effects in the frontal lobes, it may well be worth a try in other areas. The head would probably have to be shaved to reach certain areas, although perhaps the temporal lobe is reachable without the need for this.

[renfr]

So far I have been stimulating the frontal lobes with the vetrolaser, to interesting effect. However the effect is inconsistent, perhaps because of my persistent insomnia. On the rare days that I wake up rested and place the laser to my brain, I experience greater associational abilities and memories come with greater ease. I am also more awake, but I think I notice the difference more on the days I don't take it. Sometimes when I'm tired it seems to increase my zombification, but I emphasize seems because it most likely just boosts my awareness of my own tiredness while other brain areas remain understimulated.

I was wondering, lostfalco, have you considered stimulating other areas of the cortex via LLLT? Potentially we could stimulate the temporal lobe, the parietal lobe and the occipital lobe. If we could get the whole of the NeoCortex buzzing that'd give amazing results. Among some of the potential benefits could be greater declarative or long-term memory, better processing of visual memories, sensory input, language comprehension, motor control, spatial navigation, associations and a whole load of other stuff. If this actually works we could target pretty much every higher order brain function!!

As far as I'm aware, the structure of individual neurons tends not to differ very much across different brain regions of the neocortex, rather the differentiation of functionality is due to the variability in the connections between them. Since the safety has been established for certain minimalist protocols in relatively healthy individuals (ie anxious and depressed patients) while targeting the frontal lobes, it seems reasonable to infer the probable safety of the same protocol being targeted at other regions of the cortex. I understand this is uncharted territory, so I would appreciate any feedback from people with greater knowledge of neural structures. But since even a single dose of 4 minutes delivers appreciable effects in the frontal lobes, it may well be worth a try in other areas. The head would probably have to be shaved to reach certain areas, although perhaps the temporal lobe is reachable without the need for this.

Do you use only one laser? Is it one of those sold on ebay?

[OpaqueMind]

I use the vetrolaser that lostfalco referenced at the beggining of this thread, the impact crater of which can still be seen in my bank account. Peakplasma brought an ebay laser though, and he seems to be experiencing some benefit.

[OpaqueMind]

Wait, I tell a lie, this is not uncharted territory after all...

In humans, 2 persons with chronic mTBI recently have been reported to have improved cognition after a series of treatments with transcranial, red, and NIR LEDs. The LED cluster heads were applied to the forehead and scalp areas (the hair was not shaved off but was parted underneath each 2-inch-diameter LED cluster head). Each cluster head had 61 diodes (9 red 633-nm diodes and 52 NIR 870-nm diodes). Each diode was 12-15 mW, and the total power output was 500 mW. The LED cluster heads were applied to bilateral frontal, parietal, and temporal areas and to the mid-sagittal suture line.

Case 2 involved a 52-year-old retired, high-ranking female military officer who had a history of multiple TBIs. Her brain MRI showed frontoparietal atrophy. She was medically disabled for 5 months before beginning nightly transcranial LED treatments at home. After 4 months of nightly LED treatments, she returned to work full time as an executive consultant for an international technology consulting firm and discontinued medical disability. Neuropsychological tests performed after 9 months of transcranial LED showed significant improvement in cognition. After LED treatments, she improved on tests of executive function (inhibition and inhibition accuracy, +2 SD) and on memory (immediate and delayed recall +1, +2 SD).

Source

These were transcranial treatments, across the whole scalp. I may have to shave my head tomorrow

It seems to me it would be possible to increase the output of certain specific areas, and therefore specific functions, as long as they lie on or near to the surface of the brain and are not too small. I vaguely remember LF referencing that the laser could penetrate about 2 inches deep given enough time. If this is the case then there are many, many options available to us.

Edited by OpaqueMind, 22 May 2013 - 08:00 PM.

[lostfalco]

Wait, I tell a lie, this is not uncharted territory after all...

In humans, 2 persons with chronic mTBI recently have been reported to have improved cognition after a series of treatments with transcranial, red, and NIR LEDs. The LED cluster heads were applied to the forehead and scalp areas (the hair was not shaved off but was parted underneath each 2-inch-diameter LED cluster head). Each cluster head had 61 diodes (9 red 633-nm diodes and 52 NIR 870-nm diodes). Each diode was 12-15 mW, and the total power output was 500 mW. The LED cluster heads were applied to bilateral frontal, parietal, and temporal areas and to the mid-sagittal suture line.

Case 2 involved a 52-year-old retired, high-ranking female military officer who had a history of multiple TBIs. Her brain MRI showed frontoparietal atrophy. She was medically disabled for 5 months before beginning nightly transcranial LED treatments at home. After 4 months of nightly LED treatments, she returned to work full time as an executive consultant for an international technology consulting firm and discontinued medical disability. Neuropsychological tests performed after 9 months of transcranial LED showed significant improvement in cognition. After LED treatments, she improved on tests of executive function (inhibition and inhibition accuracy, +2 SD) and on memory (immediate and delayed recall +1, +2 SD).

Source

These were transcranial treatments, across the whole scalp. I may have to shave my head tomorrow :laugh:

It seems to me it would be possible to increase the output of certain specific areas, and therefore specific functions, as long as they lie on or near to the surface of the brain and are not too small. I vaguely remember LF referencing that the laser could penetrate about 2 inches deep given enough time. If this is the case then there are many, many options available to us.

Hey Opaque, cool you're trying this. Sorry for the very brief response...I'll write more after work.

Here's the bovine tissue study for penetration depth: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/23441909

3.4cm = 1.33 inches
RESULTS:

For 808 nm, 1 mW/cm(2) was achieved at 3.4 cm, but for 980 nm, 1 mW/cm(2) was achieved at only 2.2 cm depth of tissue.

CONCLUSIONS:

It was determined that 808 nm of light penetrates as much as 54% deeper than 980 nm light in bovine tissue.

My thoughts: power and wavelength both affect depth. Hamblin and Hode have more work on this but I can't remember the studies off the top of my head. Google those guys and see what you can find.

[travis_w]

I just read the topic post, none of the others yet, but first thoughts... I go to UT Austin, should I go get shot in the head with a laser?

[Colli]

I've been using my 808nm laser on EEG points F3 and F4, and at other times on different areas of the forehead. Right after use, I do feel a pressure in my forehead, possibly consistent with increased blood flow. However, I haven't experienced any increase in alertness or focus - quite the opposite in fact. After each session I feel pretty groggy and sleepy, and I often end up having a nap.

I've been doing this for about a week now, and a lack of satisfactory results is tempting me to discontinue the experiment.

[OpaqueMind]

GO FOR IT
Pic unrelated (hopefully)

[peakplasma]

I use the vetrolaser that lostfalco referenced at the beggining of this thread, the impact crater of which can still be seen in my bank account. Peakplasma brought an ebay laser though, and he seems to be experiencing some benefit.

I'm glad you're trying this.

Regarding safety, power density and penetration depth, I have some pretty good information!

They did a study on human cadavers and showed that the 808nm infrared light applied power density at the skin after penetrating the scalp and skull delivered a mean of only 1.71% with a minimum of 0.59% and a maximum of 3.65%. So my laser (200-400mw/cm2) would deliver a maximum of about 7.3-14.6mw/cm2 at the scalp, about 100x below the danger zone. Check out the patent for the Neurothera transcranial infrared laser system for stroke and brain injury. They have good information regarding safety and power density. In the tests, only doses over 750 mW/cm² caused any adverse neurological effects on the rat brain but up to 75mw/cm² was fine.

I haven't had any amazing effects from using the laser on my forehead; however, I successfully treated my mom's back pain last night with a 2 minute application. Her pain is back today but is only about 50% of the pain before the treatment.

[peakplasma]

I've been using my 808nm laser on EEG points F3 and F4, and at other times on different areas of the forehead. Right after use, I do feel a pressure in my forehead, possibly consistent with increased blood flow. However, I haven't experienced any increase in alertness or focus - quite the opposite in fact. After each session I feel pretty groggy and sleepy, and I often end up having a nap.

I've been doing this for about a week now, and a lack of satisfactory results is tempting me to discontinue the experiment.

How long are you applying it? You've got to consider the total energy (joules) being delivered to the brain.

I apply it to the middle of my forehead, F3 and F4 but only 10 seconds on each spot which is about 2-4 joules each spot.

[travis_w]

I held a red and orange one of these to my head in different spots for a few minutes, nothing happened. Debunked.


Anyway, I'm shopping around, trying to make a budget friendly decision while still getting bang for my buck. I just want high return vs money, prices is important but I'll pay ten grand if it promises to eddiemorafy me.

What do you guys think of all the stuff on amazon? Lots of stuff to be found and many links to be followed (or google searches) to retailer websites (which oddly enough often sell them cheaper).

Examples:

http://www.amazon.co...8656c7064757-20

http://www.amazon.co...keywords=880 nm

http://www.amazon.co...8656c7064757-20

http://www.amazon.co...f=pd_sbs_hpc_37

http://www.tenspros....stem_p_273.html

Edited by travis_w, 23 May 2013 - 02:05 AM.

[lostfalco]

I just read the topic post, none of the others yet, but first thoughts... I go to UT Austin, should I go get shot in the head with a laser?

A longhorn! Awesome. Eat some ribs from The Salt Lick for me.

Here's Gonzalez-Lima's faculty page http://www.utexas.ed...ogy/faculty/fg. Looks like Barrett works in his lab http://www.utexas.ed...r/barrett.html. If you had the time/desire it'd be really cool if you were able to talk to one of them (office hours?). I'm guessing Barrett might be better because he's a little younger and might be more open to fools like us shooting lasers into our heads at home. Just tell him that we're huge fans of his work and show him this thread. If he got on here, posted, and taught us what's up, that'd be really cool. I'd also be open to any sort of test or experiment he wanted run. I visit Austin all the time. No pressure though...I know you've gotta be super busy.

[lostfalco]

I've been using my 808nm laser on EEG points F3 and F4, and at other times on different areas of the forehead. Right after use, I do feel a pressure in my forehead, possibly consistent with increased blood flow. However, I haven't experienced any increase in alertness or focus - quite the opposite in fact. After each session I feel pretty groggy and sleepy, and I often end up having a nap.

I've been doing this for about a week now, and a lack of satisfactory results is tempting me to discontinue the experiment.

Check out this study for possible dosing suggestions and for one example of expected effects. http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21182447

Subject One lasered right before bed every night and the enhancements were cumulative over time.

Unfortunately, as with almost all nootropics, there is a sensitive dose dependent element and it takes quite a bit of reading and tweaking to find the right balance. Most of the studies out there are linked in this thread. =)

[travis_w]

I sent Douglas Barrett an email, we'll see what he says and if he shows up on here to school us

[lostfalco]

I sent Douglas Barrett an email, we'll see what he says and if he shows up on here to school us :)

Cool. Thanks for doing that man. Let's hope he's open to reasonable n=1 experiments.

[lostfalco]

Another interesting article on transcranial ultrasound stimulation: http://www.scienceda...00609122832.htm

In rats it:
1. activates memory formation patterns
2. stimulates BDNF production
3. stimulates action potentials
4. poses very low health risk

Here's an 8 mHZ doppler that I found http://www.medexsupp...oducts_id=23548

Anybody know anything about ultrasound? What is distinct about a pocket doppler compared to the ultrasound used in the studies? Here's the 8 mHZ human pilot study again http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22664271 and a pdf of that study www.quantumconsciousness.org/documents/TUSinpress2.pdf

[lostfalco]

Has anybody tried Galantamine + Nicotene + Dual N-back to test/train working memory?

The simple theory is this:
1. galantamine allosterically modulates the nicotene receptors (and inhibits acetylcholinsterase)
2. the nicotene and extra acetylcholine stimulate alpha 7 receptors
3. working memory is enhanced due to alpha 7 receptor enhanced activity

I know people try this combo for lucid dreaming, but has anybody tried this for WM? I have been unable to find any discussions online. Any warnings from the chemists out there? I'd appreciate your much broader background knowledge on this idea.

Edited by lostfalco, 23 May 2013 - 07:18 AM.

[travis_w]

Long winded rant about above-mentioned entrepreneur, TLDR at bottom:

After reading all about him, his experiences and revelations, reviews on both sides, his website and researching pretty much everything on it, I have decided that Dave Asprey is mostly full of shit.

He might have stumbled on a path relating to much of what we are into and discuss here on this forum, but I highly doubt that focusing on controlling my heartbeat tempo while standing on a vibrating plate coated in grass-fed butter and immersed in 'dirty electricity' waves ... ugh ...

...anyways, I was excited about his website at first. It sounded like he was going somewhere with the coffee and other edible products, I even added stuff to my cart, but then I clicked the "Tech" link (which was laughable enough) and also started doing research around the net on him and his advertised products, which yielded highly polarized and mixed reviews.

Seriously though, anyone who has any respect for doing their own personal research to validate claims... or... just ... science... in general... has to laugh when they read something like this (copied from a random(1) tech page on his site without editing):


Peak Performance
There is evidence dirty electricity is undermining peak performance. Reducing this unusable electrical energy has been shown to improve our energy, sleep, concentration and overall sense of well-being.
Removing Dirty Electricity with Greenwave Filters
These special filters from Greenwave™ can be plugged into any electrical outlet and will immediately begin reducing unusable electrical energy.
Oh yay! My unusable electricity is being reduced! My peak performance is no longer being undermined! (wtf?)

In some of the reference numbers(2) he uses (when he uses them, he didn't use any for the above)
he even has links to research papers that conclusively result in
(a) nothing, or
(b) the opposite of what he claims.

I almost purchased the coffee anyway, it still seemed legitimate, but after reading many web pages sections like the above I realized that all his coffee/supplement/everything writings are all just the same bullcrap-sales-pitchy-stuff. Then I read some reviews saying that "Upgraded" coffee tasted no different from regular coffee (except maybe a hint of what having a lighter wallet tastes like), and when you "Bulletproof" it, it tastes even worse. And it gives you jitters.

After taking a step back, this is just a guy who did a bit of research to find something to blame and a way to "fix" it. (i.e. moldy coffee beans, jitters, whatever)
How many of these products did your extensive nootropic research lead you to be aware of before finding his website? He almost convinced me to buy them, lol.

I could see myself using his products or similar ones if I was doing a caveman diet and wanted a hefty dose of good fats in the morning to hold me until lunch. Other than that, it likely has no effects worth noting. The experimenter in me honestly still wants to try the full on "bulletproof" coffee, but the rest of the website turned me off.

1: Not random.
2: See number 4
3: Dirty electricity has caused a temporary(5) temporal distortion in the flux capacitative touch screen of your device and caused this comment to be deleted.
4: See number 3
5: Permanent.




TLDR: Dave Asprey is full of crap, don't fall for his salesmanship and buy his stuff, spend your money on useful things.

[lostfalco]

Long winded rant about above-mentioned entrepreneur, TLDR at bottom:

After reading all about him, his experiences and revelations, reviews on both sides, his website and researching pretty much everything on it, I have decided that Dave Asprey is mostly full of shit.

He might have stumbled on a path relating to much of what we are into and discuss here on this forum, but I highly doubt that focusing on controlling my heartbeat tempo while standing on a vibrating plate coated in grass-fed butter and immersed in 'dirty electricity' waves ... ugh ...

...anyways, I was excited about his website at first. It sounded like he was going somewhere with the coffee and other edible products, I even added stuff to my cart, but then I clicked the "Tech" link (which was laughable enough) and also started doing research around the net on him and his advertised products, which yielded highly polarized and mixed reviews.

Seriously though, anyone who has any respect for doing their own personal research to validate claims... or... just ... science... in general... has to laugh when they read something like this (copied from a random(1) tech page on his site without editing):


Peak Performance
There is evidence dirty electricity is undermining peak performance. Reducing this unusable electrical energy has been shown to improve our energy, sleep, concentration and overall sense of well-being.
Removing Dirty Electricity with Greenwave Filters
These special filters from Greenwave™ can be plugged into any electrical outlet and will immediately begin reducing unusable electrical energy.
Oh yay! My unusable electricity is being reduced! My peak performance is no longer being undermined! (wtf?)

In some of the reference numbers(2) he uses (when he uses them, he didn't use any for the above)
he even has links to research papers that conclusively result in
(a) nothing, or
(b) the opposite of what he claims.

I almost purchased the coffee anyway, it still seemed legitimate, but after reading many web pages sections like the above I realized that all his coffee/supplement/everything writings are all just the same bullcrap-sales-pitchy-stuff. Then I read some reviews saying that "Upgraded" coffee tasted no different from regular coffee (except maybe a hint of what having a lighter wallet tastes like), and when you "Bulletproof" it, it tastes even worse. And it gives you jitters.

After taking a step back, this is just a guy who did a bit of research to find something to blame and a way to "fix" it. (i.e. moldy coffee beans, jitters, whatever)
How many of these products did your extensive nootropic research lead you to be aware of before finding his website? He almost convinced me to buy them, lol.

I could see myself using his products or similar ones if I was doing a caveman diet and wanted a hefty dose of good fats in the morning to hold me until lunch. Other than that, it likely has no effects worth noting. The experimenter in me honestly still wants to try the full on "bulletproof" coffee, but the rest of the website turned me off.

1: Not random.
2: See number 4
3: Dirty electricity has caused a temporary(5) temporal distortion in the flux capacitative touch screen of your device and caused this comment to be deleted.
4: See number 3
5: Permanent.




TLDR: Dave Asprey is full of crap, don't fall for his salesmanship and buy his stuff, spend your money on useful things.

I totally get where you're coming from. I have very mixed feelings about Asprey. I think you are wise to view his claims with a critical eye and I recommend that everybody who reads his stuff do the same. I started off using his recipe and buying my own versions of the butter, oil, and coffee because anybody with a cursory knowledge of marketing can see what he's doing. For me, it started as an experiment and I've just kept going with it because I've had good results.

[8bitmore]

[...]
TLDR: Dave Asprey is full of crap, don't fall for his salesmanship and buy his stuff, spend your money on useful things.

Completely agree. I think there's a lot to be said for improving/raising healthy fat intake but the extreme drink down half a kilo of butter daily approach just seems retarded to me. It's the same sort of logic ("its all good this one particular extreme way") that lead people down the path of carb-only-low-fat diets half a century ago!

[Psionic]

Another interesting article on transcranial ultrasound stimulation: http://www.scienceda...00609122832.htm

In rats it:
1. activates memory formation patterns
2. stimulates BDNF production
3. stimulates action potentials
4. poses very low health risk

Here's an 8 mHZ doppler that I found http://www.medexsupp...oducts_id=23548

Anybody know anything about ultrasound? What is distinct about a pocket doppler compared to the ultrasound used in the studies? Here's the 8 mHZ human pilot study again http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/22664271 and a pdf of that study www.quantumconsciousness.org/documents/TUSinpress2.pdf

Thanks for the article on SD, looks like Dr. Tyler is doing extensive research on pulsed transcranial ultrasound - (http://www.tylerlab.com/) I wonder how to replicate.

[OpaqueMind]

I use the vetrolaser that lostfalco referenced at the beggining of this thread, the impact crater of which can still be seen in my bank account. Peakplasma brought an ebay laser though, and he seems to be experiencing some benefit.

I'm glad you're trying this.

Regarding safety, power density and penetration depth, I have some pretty good information!

They did a study on human cadavers and showed that the 808nm infrared light applied power density at the skin after penetrating the scalp and skull delivered a mean of only 1.71% with a minimum of 0.59% and a maximum of 3.65%. So my laser (200-400mw/cm2) would deliver a maximum of about 7.3-14.6mw/cm2 at the scalp, about 100x below the danger zone. Check out the patent for the Neurothera transcranial infrared laser system for stroke and brain injury. They have good information regarding safety and power density. In the tests, only doses over 750 mW/cm² caused any adverse neurological effects on the rat brain but up to 75mw/cm² was fine.

I haven't had any amazing effects from using the laser on my forehead; however, I successfully treated my mom's back pain last night with a 2 minute application. Her pain is back today but is only about 50% of the pain before the treatment.

Awesome, thanks for this man. I think the vetrolaser is 3x200mw output, if not then it is 200mW, so in either case I will also be well below the danger zone. This is reassuring, considering I may be stimulating many areas of my scalp.

Now here's the tricky part, I wonder if too much global stimulation of the neural circuitry would overload the system, or reduce the efficiency of its use in each area. In terms of the mitochondial boost, the effects will be unaffected because that is a direct mechanism (via electron shell jumping and subsequent emission), however in terms of neurogenesis, if BDNF is used as an intermediary in the creation of new neurons then there should be a limited amount of total neuron growth possible at any one time. Along with the uncertainty of other mechanisms this compounds the problem a little bit.

In one study on stroke patients

An NIR (808 nm) laser was used, which delivered a fluence of 0.9 J/cm² over the entire surface (2 minutes per each of the 20 points; power density of 7.5 mW/cm²).

According to here 1 watt = 1 joule/s² = 1000mW. The total fluence then was 900mW at each eeg point. Fluence is defined by wikipedia as flux (the flow of something) integrated through time. It took two minutes at each site to achieve this with a laser of power density 7.5 mW/cm². Extrapolating from peakplasma's calculations the vetrolaser delivers anywhere between 7.3-21.9mW/cm² which is ~1-3x the energy density used in the study. This seems well within the safety margin, but if you could clarify the specification of the laser that'd be cool lostfalco (I'm not at home right now). Even so, it seems I am within the safe range, unless my calculations/understanding are incorrect (they may well be, as I'm not used to this kind of thinking!). Hmmm looking now back it seems the laser itself had a power density of 7.5mW/cm2, much lower than the energy density of the vetrolaser.

Until I can be sure of the calculations, I will play it safe and use it on only specific areas. In an earlier post LF stated the penetration depth of an 808nm laser to be 3.4cm, though I'm not sure how deep the cortex goes or how deep the various layers go, as its difficult to tell using pictorial models and working from there to different head sizes. If anyone finds anything that might help us do that, post it up here and I will be eternally grateful

I may just go about trying to stimulate certain specific brain regions at about 2 minutes a time, which is well within the parameters used on other areas of the brain in some studies. I was thinking of starting off with the temporal lobe since it seems to be indicated in the encoding and retrieval of memory. According to this diagram it is very near the top of the ear, so may not even require a shaved head to reach.

[lostfalco]

Vetrolaser is 200 mw total. 66ish per diode. Source: phone convo with vetro seller Dr. Kamen.

[travis_w]

People should totally give more +1s for comedy. It isn't easy being a master of sarcasm using only text, you know. I figured the footnote maze would at least warrant 45-47 +1s. It still falls in the right range after error propagation I guess, so it's all good.

Anyway, can people post more of their experiences using these lasers or any similar setup? A few have posted that they got one and used it to obtain some sort of results. Does anyone else have consistent positive results? Also, to everyone, what do you guys think of the stuff I linked from amazon? Not strong enough energy density? Amazon seems to have mostly glowing reviews of light therapy items all across the board, which at least says something.