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GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

extremetech.com

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Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#71

Post by mvzink »

georgieporgie wrote: post #60
dj_axl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware, there is a 2 in 933 chance of developing a severe skin rash reaction, and the FDA has rejected modafinil for this reason. From Wikipedia: "The FDA advisory committee voted 12 to 1 against approval, citing concerns about a number of reported cases of skin rash reactions in a trial that included 933 patients on modafinil, including two severe cases which appeared to be "definite" erythema multiforme or Stevens–…

That was in a trial for ADHD treatment in adolescents. As a result, they don't advise the use of Modafinil in children. It is unclear to me whether the 933 studied were adolescents, and if so, whether or not a similar rate of rashes are seen in adults. The Wikipedia page also says: "From the date of initial marketing, December 1998, to January 30, 2007, FDA received six cases of severe cutaneous adverse reactions ass…

Given that they are all different conditions, I'm guessing it's more likely to be reactions with other drugs, diet, conditions, etc. than a side effect worth worrying about.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#72

Post by barrybe »

victork2 wrote: post #69

My thought process: See that it can be an interesting concept. Look at the article "mmm why not". Click on GoFlow.com link, see the meme in the front page. It's a bad one. Close page, will never come back.

GoFlow.com is a site about sailing, this site's at http://flowstateengaged.com/

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#74

Post by scotty79 »

scotty79 wrote: post #28

Here's the schematic for current limiter and description how to pick components for it. http://www.vidisonic.com/2008/07/10/current-limiting-circuit...

I started with bottom left schematic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_limiting

and found resistor values by tinkering in simulator (I'm a noob) and I arrived at this:

http://www.falstad.com/circuit/#%24+1+5.0E-6+10.200277308269...

Now time to check how it works in the real world. ;-)

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#75

Post by idm »

barrybe wrote: post #72
victork2 wrote: post #69

My thought process: See that it can be an interesting concept. Look at the article "mmm why not". Click on GoFlow.com link, see the meme in the front page. It's a bad one. Close page, will never come back.

GoFlow.com is a site about sailing, this site's at http://flowstateengaged.com/

OP went to the correct site; you posted the URL containing the same bad meme about Ruby.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#76

Post by Gormo »

thwest wrote: post #41
mistercow wrote: post #14

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if some students can afford tDCS kits, but others can’t? What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? This is one of the silliest purported ethical issues I've ever seen, but it consistently gets con…

Some are primed to blanch at transhumanism; Some are primed to accept a class-based social hierarchy as simply mundane and not an ethical issue. Every new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class is an appropriate opportunity to ask the question "why solve this problem instead of improving peoples' lives by tackling inequality?" The answer can be that one is simply working on what one is good at. However that…

What does the fact that some people may not be able to immediately afford the latest innovations have to do with accepting a "class-based social hierarchy", or recognizing any social hierarchy at all?

Who is 'granting' any 'privileges' to anyone - where do these kinds of notions even come from?

Reducing the particulars of actual people's real lives to instances of abstract categories is silly, inappropriate, and insulting; if you know someone who you think would benefit from this device, but who can't afford to buy one, then you can buy one for him yourself. If you know many such people, you can start a foundation to buy them for people, and contribute your own energies to developing even lower-cost open-spec implementations, a la Raspberry Pi.

There are plenty of actual solutions you can pursue when you address problems within the particulars of their own contexts. But those who instead prefer merely to dawdle with abstractions, propose preemptive universal-scope policies, and cast people's real circumstances into arbitrary taxonomies are themselves the one promoting some kind of "class-based social hierarchy".

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#77

Post by gwern »

phaker wrote: post #65
gwern wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/2012-clark.pdf "TDCS guided using fMRI significantly accelerates learning to identify concealed objects"

A MRI machine is probably not included in the $99 kit. :) I was skeptical that simple, unguided tDCS could have significant effects so I searched some more and found a very nice overview paper: http://www.aipass.org/files/TDCS_State%20of%20the%20art.pdf "Transcranial direct current stimulation: State of the art 2008"

That overview seemed to be more about what exact methodology future studies should use. The Nature article had more of an overview than that.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#78

Post by dinkumthinkum »

At the risk of being downvoted, after the reading all the comments here, disappointingly, it appears P.T. Barnum's often quoted remark (yes I'm aware he may not have said it, irrelevant) about suckers and being born every minute, is especially applicable to HNers. Maybe it's some kind of "too smart for their own good" kind of phenomenon (getting into this business of current regulators and all this jibber jabber); but, perhaps that is just self-serving.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#79

Post by adammichaelc »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #78

At the risk of being downvoted, after the reading all the comments here, disappointingly, it appears P.T. Barnum's often quoted remark (yes I'm aware he may not have said it, irrelevant) about suckers and being born every minute, is especially applicable to HNers. Maybe it's some kind of "too smart for their own good" kind of phenomenon (getting into this business of current regulators and all this jibber jabber); bu…

AFAIK 70-80 human studies have been done on tDCS, most of them placebo-controlled.

Here's a review on the topic from Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110413/full/472156a.html

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#80

Post by joshu »

georgieporgie wrote: post #49
godfreykfc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if this allows you to run faster. Should we allow this in Olympics? (I haven't made up my mind yet, but leaning towards a no.)

Given that the Olympics is ostensibly rooted in long tradition, I would say no, enhancements should not be allowed. I'm all for allowing drug use of any kind into professional sports. I think it's silly that we watch rather grotesque caricatures of humans swinging bats or tackling people, then pretend to be shocked and admonish them when we find out they're "cheating" by using chemicals. As if the health risks associ…

I would like to see an "all modifications allowed" Olympics, please.
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