"The evidence of harm would be the evidence that you can hurt some cognitive functions with the same stimulation protocols that help another cognitive function. But they're completely correct that we don't have any evidence saying you're definitely hurting yourself. We do have evidence that you're definitely changing your brain."
interview:
http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2016/07/11/caution-brain-hacking
Paper:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24689/references
I was aware of the variability of responses to stim, but not the paper that leveraging one brain function could impair another. This was also written to give the docs some info to help inform their patients.
edit
I'll also tuck this in here, as i posted it to open thread.
Texting changes brain waves to new, previously unknown, pattern.
http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/2623.html
Makes me wonder if they were using spell check, or the new, shortend speak. By using constructed kernels, or images of words and concepts, it looks like machine learning retrieval or construction is already being practiced here ?
Deep brain stimulation provides long-term relief from severe depressions. (wire-heading)
"Most of the patients respond to the therapy. The remarkable thing is that the effect is also lasting. Other forms of therapy often lose their effectiveness in the course of time. This makes deep brain stimulation a highly promising approach for people with previously non-treatable depression,"
The eight test subjects had suffered continuously for three to eleven years from a severe depression that responded neither to drugs nor to psychotherapy or treatments like electroconvulsive therapy. The doctors implanted razor-thin electrodes and stimulated a brain region that is involved in the perception of pleasure and is thus also important for motivation and quality of life."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-03/uof-dbs032017.php
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2017.01.581