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Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

nature.com

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Re: Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

#11

Post by mattkrause »

qrian wrote: post #2

Seems pretty cool. I've heard great things about deep brain stimulation and how it is the SOTA for many neurological disorders. It has actual experiments in humans instead of rodents. And the humans are healthy adults too! So it ticks all boxes for me as an amature enthusiast for a potential 'enhance my cognition' method. I wonder, where the catch?

The catch is that the effects of tTIS are very, very weak--even compared to other forms of non-invasive brain stimulation--and while it does do something to the brain, the proposed mechanism is probably not quite right.

Some of the authors' earlier work in rodents painted a really exciting picture of directly driving neuronal activity from outside the brain. However, that data came from an animal with a small, smooth brain and the stimulation was actually delivered onto the skull (rather than the skin). Thus, they could make electric fields of ~400 V/m in their animals, whereas fields of ~1 V/m are about all you can expect from non-invasive (i.e., scalp) electrical stimulation of an awake, healthy human (at least one that you want to keep healthy!).

We recently did some experiments with macaques receiving tTIS through the scalp, which are much more similar to humans. It could shift the timing of individual neurons' ongoing activity, but not directly force them to spike. It generally wasn't strong enough to impose new rhythms on the brain, just muck up existing ones. This isn't nothing--"mistimed" neural activity is involved in lots of diseases and ways to fix that might be very valuable--but it's very different fro the dominant story.

Here are our results, if you want to read more: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.25.559340v1

Re: Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

#12

Post by mattkrause »

neuronexmachina wrote: post #10
taraparo wrote: post #8

Does this relate to tDCS (Transcranial direct current stimulation)? I heard this is also good for enhancing learning.

tDCS is (as the name indicates) a constant current, whereas it looks like the temporal interference (TI) technique has two oscillating channels tuned for targeting deeper brain regions: >TI stimulation is a novel brain stimulation strategy that employs two or more independent stimulation channels delivering HF currents (oscillating at f1 and f1 + Δf) within the kHz range, which are assumed to be inert in terms of ind…

The gear is pretty similar for tDCS, tACS (which uses alternating current at the "target" frequency"), and TI. Our data suggests that you can hit deep brain structures with all of them (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1815958116) but TI has the advantage of focality: it avoids stimulating things between the scalp and the target.

The other major difference is how it affects the neurons. tDCS, tACS and even TMS create electric fields that electrically polarize the neurons. TI...doesn't. The stimulus itself changes too rapidly and only the envelope fluctuates at the "target frequency." However, that envelope isn't real: something has to extract/demodulate it from the carriers and it's not entirely clear how--or how well--that happens.

Re: Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

#13

Post by blufuz »

mattkrause wrote: post #11
qrian wrote: post #2

Seems pretty cool. I've heard great things about deep brain stimulation and how it is the SOTA for many neurological disorders. It has actual experiments in humans instead of rodents. And the humans are healthy adults too! So it ticks all boxes for me as an amature enthusiast for a potential 'enhance my cognition' method. I wonder, where the catch?

The catch is that the effects of tTIS are very, very weak--even compared to other forms of non-invasive brain stimulation--and while it does do something to the brain, the proposed mechanism is probably not quite right. Some of the authors' earlier work in rodents painted a really exciting picture of directly driving neuronal activity from outside the brain. However, that data came from an animal with a small, smooth…

Your experiment in macaques is a really important test for such a new method, but do you think that the difference in stimulation protocol could be meaningful? In their paper they used a theta burst stimulation protocol (3 100 hz pulses 200ms apart) which has been very effective with TMS and has been shown to affect neuronal plasticity. Maybe 10 hz tACS-like stimulation is more about spike timing than plasticity?

Re: Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

#14

Post by noduerme »

mattkrause wrote: post #11
qrian wrote: post #2

Seems pretty cool. I've heard great things about deep brain stimulation and how it is the SOTA for many neurological disorders. It has actual experiments in humans instead of rodents. And the humans are healthy adults too! So it ticks all boxes for me as an amature enthusiast for a potential 'enhance my cognition' method. I wonder, where the catch?

The catch is that the effects of tTIS are very, very weak--even compared to other forms of non-invasive brain stimulation--and while it does do something to the brain, the proposed mechanism is probably not quite right. Some of the authors' earlier work in rodents painted a really exciting picture of directly driving neuronal activity from outside the brain. However, that data came from an animal with a small, smooth…

Just wondering, if you take a wide beam approach to stimulating the brain with electricity, doesn't that sort of just reamplify whatever is going on in the circuitry and/or activate whatever's already latently there? How's this any better than a line of coke or six cups of coffee?

Re: Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

#16

Post by virtualritz »

On HN the use of psychedelic microdosing for problem solving/creativity is usually the only context that is being discussed. But there are others.

For rapid motor skill improvement I suggest microdosing LSD or shrooms and then doing the resp. excercise/practice. Ideally with a teacher/master present, to correct/help.

Also applying the techniques from the famous "The Inner Game of Tennis" book during the trip window helps/boosts the effects for me.

The more difficult the motor skill is and the more coordination with other sensory input it requires, the better the gains.

I am tango dancer and this is a hobby that takes years to master.

Some people would say a decade or more, until you get to an acceptable level.

Even more, if you have zero musicality and two left feet, like I did, when I started. It was an uphill battle for years.

I only discovered this hack by accident, during the lockdown, about six years into this hobby.

I believe I cut years off my tango learning time, ever after. And there is strong evidence based on the feedback of people from the community I dance in, who know me/danced with me for years, before and after.

My partner only started tango two years ago. She is also microdosing regularly when she trains and sometimes even for social dancing, when we go to events where the level is very high/you are expected to dance with lots of experienced partners.

Most people believe she is dancing since at least four, but sometimes over five years.

Certainly, my sample size is two.

But it makes sense when you look at what the research on psychedelics suggests about increased neural plasticity during a trip (if that is even what you want to call it when microdosing).

Re: Noninvasive theta-burst stimulation enhances skill learning

#18

Post by Staple_Diet »

noduerme wrote: post #14
mattkrause wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The catch is that the effects of tTIS are very, very weak--even compared to other forms of non-invasive brain stimulation--and while it does do something to the brain, the proposed mechanism is probably not quite right. Some of the authors' earlier work in rodents painted a really exciting picture of directly driving neuronal activity from outside the brain. However, that data came from an animal with a small, smooth…

Just wondering, if you take a wide beam approach to stimulating the brain with electricity, doesn't that sort of just reamplify whatever is going on in the circuitry and/or activate whatever's already latently there? How's this any better than a line of coke or six cups of coffee?

Yes to your first question, or at least that's where most literature leans. In brain stimulation research the terms online and offline refer to whether stim is delivered concurrently with a task (online) or before/after a task (offline). Generally greater benefits are seen in studies that repeatedly pair brain stim concurrently with a task over several sessions, but of course many methodological factors (intensity, duration, electrode location) and individual factors (brain morphology, neurochemical concentration levels) can influence the outcome.

With your second question; brain stimulation is reasoned to be less addictive than those substances, and of course less selective in its effect. Furthermore the studies that report positive benefits can show these benefits lasting almost 24h following a single stimulation session....however, having done my doctorate on this technology I can tell you it is definitely no panacea, and lately many critiques of this type of intervention have been published.

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