That's interesting. It kinda reminds me of the Symtonic LEET machine invented by Boris Pasche, intended to improve sleep. It used one electrode on the tongue. AFAIK it never reached production.
"Electroencephalographic Changes Following Low Energy Emission Therapy
by J. P. Lebet, A. Barbault, C. Rossel, Z. Tomic, M. Reite, L. Higgs, U. Dafani, D. Amato, and B. Pasche
Symtonic USA, Inc., New York, NY
Low Energy Emission Therapy (LEET) is a novel approach to deliver low levels of amplitude-modulated electromagnetic (EM) fields to the human brain. The sleep EEG effects of a 15-minute LEET treatment were investigated in a double-blind cross-over study i n order to assess sleep induction. Fifty two healthy volunteers were exposed to both active and inactive LEET treatment sessions, with a minimum interval of one week between the two sessions. Baseline EEGs were obtained and 15-minute post-treatment EEGs were recorded and analyzed according to the Loomis classification.
A significant increase in the duration of stage B1 sleep (mean 0.58 S.D. 2.42 min, p=0.046), decreased latency to sleep stage B1 (mean -1.23 S.D. 5.32 min, p = 0.051) and decreased latency to sleep stage B2 (mean -1.21 S.D. 5.25 min, p = 0.052) were ob served after active treatment. Additionally, establishment of slow waves with progression from stages B to C was significantly more pronounced after active LEET treatment (p = 0.040). A combined analysis of these results with those of an identical study performed in Denver showed that LEET had a significant effect on afternoon sleep induction and maintenance with shorter sleep latencies (decreased latency to sleep stage B1: mean -1.00 S.D. 5.51 min, p = 0.033; decreased latency to sleep stage B2: mean -1.49 S.D 5.40 min, p = 0.003), an increased duration of stage B2 (mean 0.67 S.D. 2.50 min, p = 0.003), an increase in the total duration of sleep (mean 0.69 S.D. 4.21 min, p = 0.049) and a more prominent establishment of slow waves with progression t o a deeper sleep stage (p = 0.006). It is concluded that the intermittent 42.7 Hz amplitude-modulation of 27.12 MHz electromagnetic fields results in EEG changes consistent with shorter sleep latencies, longer sleep duration, and deeper sleep in healthy subjects."
AND
"Electromagnetic field works better than sleeping pills without side effects
Effects of low energy emission therapy in chronic psychophysiological insomnia.
Boris Pasche et al.
Low energy emission therapy (LEET) is a technology based on the same radio frequency electromagnetic fields used in magnetic resonance imaging. The difference is that LEET is designed not to diagnose illness, but to cure it. The illness in question is insomnia, and LEET can aid insomniacs by promoting changes in the brain, itself an electrical organ. Electroencephalograms have shown how LEET can cause healthy subjects to wind down after just 15 minutes of therapy. Not only do test subjects tend to feel more relaxed, measurements of brain activity show that they really are more relaxed. It seems only logical that a device that causes such changes should help insomniacs to relax and sleep at night.
To test that hypothesis, researchers recruited 106 volunteers with insomnia through the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California, and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. Slightly over half of the subjects were women, and their average age was 40. Their sleeping patterns were assessed using polysomnography, a complete sleep evaluation that monitors breathing, heartbeat, eye movement, muscle movement and a range of other factors. Once exhaustive data had been compiled on how each patient slept, they were introduced to the somewhat bizarre-looking LEET.
What is the LEET?
The LEET could be said to resemble an electric spoon attached by a coaxial cable to a bedside alarm clock/radio. The aluminum spoon or mouthpiece is, in fact, a radio antenna, which receives a signal from the signal generator box beside the bed. The subjects lay down in bed in a quiet, dimly lit room three times a week in the afternoon, and placed the mouthpiece between the tongue and palate for 20 minutes. The mouthpiece, in contact with the patient's oral mucosa, generated an electromagnetic field within each individual's brain. Once the treatment was concluded, each patient would go on his or her way. They recorded their sleeping patterns each night for the entire four weeks of the trial. Exactly half of the subjects, however, were using inactive LEET devices that transmitted no signal at all, though they did not know that at the time. Comparisons of the two groups showed that the group receiving electromagnetic signals had slightly worse insomnia by standard measures going into the test period.
At the end of the four-week period, researchers compared the somnographic records of both groups, and found that while a placebo effect had increased total sleep time in the dummy-device patients by about 13 minutes, the group using the real LEET had gained an average of over an hour-and-a-quarter in extra sleep, a 26% gain. They were also far ahead in two other basic parameters of sleep: sleep latency (the number of minutes spent in bed before dropping off) and sleep efficiency (the total amount of time asleep as a proportion of the total amount of time spent in bed trying to sleep). Again a placebo effect had reduced latency in the dummy group by about six minutes to an average of about 28 minutes, but the LEET group's average latency had fallen by almost 22 minutes to just over 18 -- a reduction of over half to a level that's considered normal for human sleep. Sleep efficiency in the dummy group increased by 5.5% to 73.7%, while in the LEET group it climbed 16% to 78.6% (it had been worse to start with). In the volunteers with the worst insomnia, who fell in the bottom 50% on all sleep parameters, total sleep time with the LEET increased by an average one hour 42 minutes.
The patterns of sleep appeared to have changed, too. There was a three times greater increase in rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep in the LEET group than in the placebo group. That change has important implications in terms of sleep quality and restorative value. The LEET group was going through a more natural sleep progression, with 30% more cycles -- a different result from that normally obtained with sleeping pills, which tend to suppress certain natural sleep stages. There was also less time spent awake after first falling asleep -- 55 minutes less -- in the LEET group, as opposed to only about 31 minutes less in the dummy-device group.
Finally, unless one includes increased awareness of dreaming as a side effect, there were no negative changes associated with the use of the LEET. It appears to produce a more natural sleep than pharmacological remedies, but without memory loss, mood changes, daytime drowsiness or hangover. Most of those patients who did dream more considered it a positive change, and most sleep specialists would agree that it is likely to indicate physiologically more valuable sleep. LEET therapy also did not appear to be weakened by rebound insomnia, as are many drugs. Indeed, subjective data analysis from other studies suggests that while benzodiazepines give their best results in the first week of use and then become less effective, LEET doesn't really begin working until the seventh or eighth treatment (about 18 days). How does it work? That's still something of a mystery. Laboratory testing will hopefully reveal more about exactly what electromagnetic fields do within the human brain."
Sorry for the long post, but I would kill to get my hands on one of these LEET things! I have the circuit diagrams for it but neither the skills nor resources to get it built.