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Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

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Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#91
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think centrophenoxine and racetams are fairly well tolerated. I've cycled them on and off for a few years with only positive outcomes. They've been studied for decades. It's probably worse to take something like tylenol pm every night, which is FDA approved, OTC etc. http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-dr...

But where's the link to centrophenoxine and racetams? Your link only talks about anticholinergic drugs. I have seen such results about benzodiazepine http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/benzodiazepine-use-may-ra... When you are chemically toying with your brain, it is good to know if there are any adverse long terms effects. Risk vs. reward. Surely some non chemical ways of modifying the your brain can also have adver…

Here is an account of long term centrophenoxine use. Not sure there is lots of study demonstrating 35 years of use is safe in large qty of the population so this should be treated as an anecdotal report only. It does cite other study he has done.

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/64596-my-personal-35-ye...

There are links to outcomes of studies on oxiracetam here which is my go to racetam:

https://examine.com/supplements/oxiracetam/

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#92

A good idea would be to create a website were self experimenters can log their results, describe their setups, take tests and answer questionnaires. Similar to what erowid did for drugs back in the days - the self reported "trip reports". Of course - warn people that it's dangerous, etc etc, but people are still going to do it so why not use that as 'volunteer' experimental data.

That's a start. But given that the report is subjective, and its a report on brain-altering drugs, as a data set its of questionable usefulness. E.g. all those that were changed to be hyper-focused will not be able to change their attention to reporting - so many will be missing from the reports. Others may become depressive and incapable of reporting as well.

Its like "everybody who didn't survive the experiment, raise your hands!"

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#93
post #76

Neuroscientist here: Just listened to a talk from a reseacher who studied tDCS and tACS in human subjects, and found that IQ scores were actually going down relative to control groups. It's absolutely not clear what the appropriate protocols are, and behavioral outcomes could be incredibly sensitive to factors such as 1) electrode placement, 2) stimulation frequency, 3) amplitude, 4) direct or alternating current, et…

> IQ scores were actually going down By how much? If someone can trade severe anxiety for perhaps 5-10 IQ points, then in most cases they will probably sign up.

Anxiety and high IQ are linked: http://www.livescience.com/36259-anxiety-linked-high-iq.html so it is possible (I am speculating) that by reducing anxiety, you are reducing IQ. Not everyone wants to be smart, but it is not a decision I would take lightly. I wonder if you could perform the opposite operation, jacking up anxiety and IQ...

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too early to say if it pseudoscience. They don't know the effects yet. It is just risky tinkering.

> They don't know the effects yet. That's what makes it 'pseudo'.

Not only that but the fact that by the method they are following, they will never know what the effects are. That's really what makes it pseudo-science.

They have an apparatus, but nothing else of the scientific method.

The results of a trial are judged in some purely subjective terms.

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#95

RadioLab's 9-Volt Nirvana episode discussed how DARPA uses tCDS to enhance sharp-shooting ability. At the end of the episode, the reporter conveyed a sense of loss when the tCDS system was no longer available to her. She sounded like a drug addict that pines for that feeling of their first high and then risks spending their life in vain trying to recover that feeling. If your life literally depends on a skill and sup…

A quote from the reporter's blog [0]: "When the nice neuroscientists put the electrodes on me, the thing that made the earth drop out from under my feet was that for the first time in my life, everything in my head finally shut the fuck up." I'll be honest, that is a pretty compelling testimonial for many folks. [0]: http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/02/09/better-living-th...

> for the first time in my life, everything in my head finally shut the fuck up

Sounds remarkably similar to what happens as a result of various techniques of meditation - but, of course, I've no way to tell whether it's actually the same thing.

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#96
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you can achieve happiness with a wire to the brain. Is there a good argument against doing this?

It would short circuit your normal reward-action feedback loop. We don't live to trigger the reward, we are rewarded to live.

So how does addiction work?

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#97
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larry Niven arguably predicted the existence of wireheads, although his wires ran directly to the brain's pleasure center.

Suppose you can achieve happiness with a wire to the brain. Is there a good argument against doing this?

Are we talking about happiness or pleasure? A days-long orgasm might be an incredible physical experience, but I doubt the feeling would be the same as seeing my daughter walk for the first time, or achieving a long-sought personal goal.

Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers

#100
post #89

The first 40 minutes of this week's "Invisibilia" touches on the effects transcranial magnetic stimulation had on a woman who lived with undiagnosed aspergers for most of her life. > ALIX SPIEGEL, BYLINE: Until she was 54 years old, Kim (ph) was totally unaware that there were things in the world that she could not see. > KIM: Everything that was intended in this went completely over my head, and now I saw it - compl…

The linked transcript is fairly short and DEFINITELY worth a read.

Very interesting stuff.

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