Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#21

Post by cubeanie » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

One of the things I've personally enjoyed using on and off in the mornings, in this 40hz space, is: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/forty40HzBrainwaveGenerato...

Mynosie generally has a lot of neat noise generators in this brainhacking space

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#22

Post by cbondurant » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

I feel like it would be more ethically responsible for this site to put the warning it has at the top of the screen instead of the bottom. For no other reason than to be as clear as possible that this is an unproven but plausible treatment strategy.

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#23

Post by ladams » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

fstokesman wrote: post #12

eigenvalue wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea. An iPhone camera now can record 60 frames per second (and much more in slow motion mode), so it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to make something that can verify the frequency with a pretty high degree of accuracy.

If you can only capture 60FPS, you cannot accurate measure a signal of 40Hz, since it is below the Nyquist frequency. (I know you mentioned the slow-mo camera which probably does have the bandwidth).

Frequencies beyond the Nyquist limit alias back to resolved modes. So a combination of the camera plus a human eye to check that the flashing is “fast” (i.e. above the Nyquist limit) should be enough to verify the frequency.

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#24

Post by myth_drannon » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

Light Therapy ( Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) and others) for brain-related disorders has been here for decades. I speny a lot of time looking at the research on it and have a mixed opinion on it. But many desperate families believe in the magic of it.

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#25

Post by serf » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

monkey_monkey wrote: post #13

Just a warning - running this for a few seconds has left my secondary display with an ongoing flicker which seems to be improving after 10 minutes and a reboot. [edit to add] 10 minutes later - the flicker has gone (or I can't perceive it)

yeah that happened here too. Was it an LG?

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#26

Post by monkey_monkey » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

serf wrote: post #25

monkey_monkey wrote: post #13

Just a warning - running this for a few seconds has left my secondary display with an ongoing flicker which seems to be improving after 10 minutes and a reboot. [edit to add] 10 minutes later - the flicker has gone (or I can't perceive it)

yeah that happened here too. Was it an LG?

Yes! It's an LG Ultra HD running at 2560x1440 @ 60Hz

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#27

Post by throwaway4aday » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

Could you just buy a cheap signal generator and hook it up to some LEDs and headphones to make a hardware version of this?

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#28

Post by smusamashah » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

Reminds of audio visual hallucination experiment someone shared here where you put on a headphone which plays white noise, and screen similarly flashes different colors but after a while the noise starts to sound like voices and color flashes change into shapes for you.

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#29

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:16 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz

#30

Post by eigenvalue » Fri, Jan 26, 2024, 2:16 PM UTC

throwaway4aday wrote: post #27

Could you just buy a cheap signal generator and hook it up to some LEDs and headphones to make a hardware version of this?

Yes you could. But the only thing I saw online that’s ready to buy like this was over $100!