Big news for self-experimenters:
Popular electric brain stimulation method used to boost brainpower is detrimental to IQ scores
http://www.scienceda...50505152140.htm
Using a weak electric current in an attempt to boost brainpower or treat conditions has become popular among scientists and do-it-yourselfers, but a new study shows that using the most common form of electric brain stimulation had a statistically significant detrimental effect on IQ scores.
In the Behavioural Brain Research study, Frohlich's team -- including graduate student Kristin Sellers, the paper's first author -- recruited 40 healthy adults, each of whom took the standard WAIS-IV intelligence test, which is the most common and well-validated test of IQ. It includes tests for verbal comprehension, perceptional reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
A week later, Frohlich's team divided the participants into two groups. Electrodes were placed on each side of each participant's scalp, under which sat the frontal cortex. Duke University collaborator and co-author Angel Peterchev, PhD, created imaging simulations to ensure Frohlich's team targeted the same parts of the cortex that previous tDCS studies had targeted.
Then the placebo group received sham stimulation -- a brief electrical current, which led participants to think they had been receiving the full tDCS. The other participants received the standard tDCS for twenty minutes -- a weak electrical current of 2 millioamperes.
All participants then retook the IQ tests. Frohlich expected that most, if not all, IQ scores would improve because of the practice effect, but that tDCS would not markedly improve scores.
Frohlich's team did find that all scores improved. Surprisingly, though, the participants who did not receive tDCS saw their IQ scores increase by ten points, whereas participants who received tDCS saw their IQ scores increase by just shy of six points, on average.
Here is the original study:
Transcranial direct current stimulation of frontal cortex decreases performance on the WAIS-IV intelligence test- Kristin K. Sellers,
- Juliann M. Mellin,
- Caroline M. Lustenberger,
- Michael R. Boyle,
- Won Hee Lee,
- Angel V. Peterchev,
- Flavio Frohlich
http://www.sciencedi...2815002739?np=y