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?

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.

Impaired learning, IIRC - one study I read about recently mentioned that when the setup was reversed on the head, learning was not enhanced compared to baseline but damaged.

0wedrifid14y

Nausea and apparent bright flashes of light. ie. What it looks and feels like to stimulate certain different parts of your brain. From what I understand this isn't a particularly big deal, just unpleasant.

2Vaniver14y

That would be it. One of the other things, that I haven't seen discussed much but seems to be going on, is that TCDS works by altering local ion concentrations. But those ions have to come from somewhere- and so it may be that TCDS lowers action potentials in one part of your brain but raises them elsewhere. (Brains are big, though, and so it seems plausible the effects elsewhere would be tiny. Ions would also be small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, so many they just get pulled out of your bloodstream? It's times like this that I wish I had taken more biology.) After watching the video, though, I'm much less pessimistic about electrode placement (or size- it looks like ours were reasonable).

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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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