DIY Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation. Who wants to go first?

Dustin

There's been a bit of discussion about TDCS here on LessWrong. If you don't know what TDCS is here's an article from Technology Review.

Here's a company (soon) selling a DIY kit to build your own.

tDCS is one of the coolest pieces of health/ self improvement technology available today. The US Army and DARPA both currently use tDCS devices to train snipers and drone pilots, and have recorded 2.5x increases in learning rates. This incredible phenomenon is achieved through a very simple device called a tDCS machine.

Today if you want to buy a tDCS machine it's nearly impossible to find one for less than $600, and you are typically required to have a prescription to order one. We wanted a simpler cheaper option. So we made one. Then, because we're all egalitarian like, we thought others might want one too.

The GoFlow β1 is a full kit of all the parts and plans you need to build your own tDCS device. $99 will get you one of the first β1's and will help us develop β2!

Here's a video from Journal of Visualized Experiments on how to administer TDCS.

Thoughts?

There's been a bit of discussion about TDCS here on LessWrong. If you don't know what TDCS is here's an article from Technology Review.

Here's a company (soon) selling a DIY kit to build your own.

tDCS is one of the coolest pieces of health/ self improvement technology available today. The US Army and DARPA both currently use tDCS devices to train snipers and drone pilots, and have recorded 2.5x increases in learning rates. This incredible phenomenon is achieved through a very simple device called a tDCS machine.

Today if you want to buy a tDCS machine it's nearly impossible to find one for less than $600, and you are typically required to have a prescription to order one. We wanted a simpler cheaper option. So we made one. Then, because we're all egalitarian like, we thought others might want one too.

The GoFlow β1 is a full kit of all the parts and plans you need to build your own tDCS device. $99 will get you one of the first β1's and will help us develop β2!

Here's a video from Journal of Visualized Experiments on how to administer TDCS.

Thoughts?

I've been looking into this, and have commented about it briefly here. I think I may hold off on future experimentation until I get this kit.

The takeaway is that there definitely appears to be an effect. Getting that effect to be positive seems more difficult, however. For example, a problem with this kit is going to be getting the electrodes in the right spots- see all of those dots on that image they have? It may be that missing the correct placement by a centimeter gives you a significantly different effect, and so I'm sort of leery of doing this more without finding a training video for EEGs or something.

(Also, going off the diagram they have, we did have the current going the right direction in our setup.)

I wonder if shaving your head would improve this treatment? I remember when I was getting an EEG. my thick hair made it difficult for the electrodes to read my mind.

3syzygy14y

What effect could misplacing the electrodes have besides stimulating a different part of the brain? I'm honestly asking, I have no idea about any of this.

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DIY Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation. Who wants to go first?

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DIY Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation. Who wants to go first?

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