This is interesting. On a recent Kevin Rose podcast he and his guest talked about targeted treatment for ADHD, dementia, etc. using video games. At one point they also discussed people using self-built gadgets to stimulate their own brain using electric current ( they do not recommend it though ).
As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my non-clinical depression. It's also one of the key tools I use to help with my addiction/alcoholism issues.
And please, if you're thinking of taking your own life reach out to someone.
I think it's a bad idea to self-experiment with electricity and the brain. See "Popular electric brain stimulation method used to boost brainpower is detrimental to IQ scores"
A few years ago while working on my undergrad I helped proctor a study involving a similar technology--transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)--and it's impact on working memory. Although neither the tech nor the desired outcome in OP's article is identical to my undergrad project, the researchers are likely facing similar challenges which seem universal for low-current brain stimulation experiments:
- Effects are measurable but very very small
- Frequent stimulation is required to achieve the desired effect
- The desired effect diminishes over time
This seems really promising, particularly because they're changing the treatment for specific patients rather than using a one-size-fits-all model. I hope their trials go well.
When I was doing research with TMS the problem we were trying to solve was focusing the magnetic field to a small point in order to target specific areas of the brain instead of stimulating a larger area. There was a lot of research being done to do this, but that seemed to be the biggest technological hurdle to the technology in addition to what you noted.
I once saw a presentation at a BCI conference about using DBS to treat depression. They basically installed a 'happy button' in someone's brain, and it worked.
On the one hand, it's sort of scary. On the other hand, what are you supposed to do when nothing, not art nor work nor drugs nor thought, does anything to ameliorate the pain?
I can see both sides of this, at once, like I'm looking at an ambiguous image: duck, or rabbit?
On one hand, it's absurd: "Electrochemical system is changed by electricity! Shocker! Be afeared'n'affrighted!" The brain is a physical system, your personality is a result of the behavior of that system, so changing the physical system is going to change the personality. It's a more controlled version of Phineas Gage and the railroad spike.
(Plus, dirty little secret: Electroconvulsive therapy works. It has nasty side-effects, but it makes depression go away rather quickly. So the basic idea of chasing away mental problems by shocking brain tissue is not new, despite a decades-long effort on the part of artists to make people think ECT is simply meaningless torture.)
On the other hand, I can see how this would be challenging to someone who finds emotional states deeply meaningful, especially if they (as most people who look for "meaningful emotional states" seem to) find sad states more meaningful than happy ones.
It's the myth of the happy pill, by which I mean the myth that depression is this wonderful, meaningful Long, Dark Night Of The Soul and that taking something to fight it is "making you feel better" in a coercive sense, and depriving you of that meaning, and, possibly, preventing you from getting to the root of the problem, which must needs be done through talk therapy.
My conclusion is this: Emotions in and of themselves aren't meaningful, treating symptoms doesn't mean you can't also look for root causes, and, sometimes, an organic dysfunction is the root cause, as opposed to something you can talk out.
I think it's scary too, but maybe for different reasons. It's a step towards building an experience machine [1]. Whilst I fully empathise with DBS as a treatment to otherwise incurable atypically negative mental states, much as I am on-board with VR enabling physically or financially limited persons to enjoy the full gamut of human experience, I baulk at the idea of this becoming mainstream.
Why? Because the implication of a 'happy button' in the hands of everyone and anyone horrifies me. Sure, you and I might have better things to do than to hold that sucker down and experience unending monotone bliss for the remainder of days, but how sure are you that the majority of humanity won't? How many lives might be wasted because someone's instinct was to go for immediate bliss instead of trying to make things better in the long run? It'd be the final drug.
I question what safety measures they are putting in place to prevent some sort of negative feedback loop... I wonder if this has the potential issue with functioning properly based on a loop that compounds and compounds on itself.
My father had DBS implants to attempt to address Essential Tremor symptoms. This works for some people. It did not for him. I would hate to see a depression-related tuning phase similar to what was required before they realized the implants couldn't improve the shakiness in his hands.
[+] [-] lemonberry|8 years ago|reply
https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Adam-Gazzaley
As an aside, I've found meditation to be very helpful in treating my non-clinical depression. It's also one of the key tools I use to help with my addiction/alcoholism issues.
And please, if you're thinking of taking your own life reach out to someone.
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
[+] [-] JoshMnem|8 years ago|reply
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150505152140.h...
[+] [-] chimen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncv|8 years ago|reply
- Effects are measurable but very very small
- Frequent stimulation is required to achieve the desired effect
- The desired effect diminishes over time
This seems really promising, particularly because they're changing the treatment for specific patients rather than using a one-size-fits-all model. I hope their trials go well.
[+] [-] sivex|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leggomylibro|8 years ago|reply
On the one hand, it's sort of scary. On the other hand, what are you supposed to do when nothing, not art nor work nor drugs nor thought, does anything to ameliorate the pain?
[+] [-] msla|8 years ago|reply
I can see both sides of this, at once, like I'm looking at an ambiguous image: duck, or rabbit?
On one hand, it's absurd: "Electrochemical system is changed by electricity! Shocker! Be afeared'n'affrighted!" The brain is a physical system, your personality is a result of the behavior of that system, so changing the physical system is going to change the personality. It's a more controlled version of Phineas Gage and the railroad spike.
(Plus, dirty little secret: Electroconvulsive therapy works. It has nasty side-effects, but it makes depression go away rather quickly. So the basic idea of chasing away mental problems by shocking brain tissue is not new, despite a decades-long effort on the part of artists to make people think ECT is simply meaningless torture.)
On the other hand, I can see how this would be challenging to someone who finds emotional states deeply meaningful, especially if they (as most people who look for "meaningful emotional states" seem to) find sad states more meaningful than happy ones.
It's the myth of the happy pill, by which I mean the myth that depression is this wonderful, meaningful Long, Dark Night Of The Soul and that taking something to fight it is "making you feel better" in a coercive sense, and depriving you of that meaning, and, possibly, preventing you from getting to the root of the problem, which must needs be done through talk therapy.
My conclusion is this: Emotions in and of themselves aren't meaningful, treating symptoms doesn't mean you can't also look for root causes, and, sometimes, an organic dysfunction is the root cause, as opposed to something you can talk out.
[+] [-] MDib|8 years ago|reply
Why? Because the implication of a 'happy button' in the hands of everyone and anyone horrifies me. Sure, you and I might have better things to do than to hold that sucker down and experience unending monotone bliss for the remainder of days, but how sure are you that the majority of humanity won't? How many lives might be wasted because someone's instinct was to go for immediate bliss instead of trying to make things better in the long run? It'd be the final drug.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d739jq/can-we-sti...
[+] [-] starshadowx2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlphaWeaver|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostbrainalpha|8 years ago|reply
Are you just saying, your worried about someone getting more and more depressed by using the device?
[+] [-] spaceman1331|8 years ago|reply
it is quite sick
[+] [-] outlace|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RhysU|8 years ago|reply