A quick search for tDCS did not turn up any major discussion newer than 2012 on LW. tDCS devices are now sub $100. Its safety track record seems to be intact. I bought one. There are places to discuss tDCS like on subreddits but I’d like to restart the conversation here with you rationalists.
I’ll admit that the basis for my statement is from the seemingly lack of much negative user reports or studies that reported high negative reactions regarding safety, rather than experiments specifically demonstrating safety.
This seems really interesting. I’d like to learn more about it. So far I’m frustrated with the quality of information I’ve found. Here’s a PMC search and a review behind a firewall.
Thanks! Lest it confuse anyone else, please note that that review is all about effects of tDCS on the cerebellum and not a review of tDCS on the cerebrum or other brain structures. The cerebelar tDCS itself seems to have many effects including cerebellar motor cortical inhibition, gait adaptation,
motor behaviour, and cognition (learning, language, memory, attention), though.
“”″
Despite their heterogeneities, the studies we reviewed collect-
ively show that tDCS can improve language performance in
healthy subjects and in patients with aphasia (
fi
gure 4).
Although relatively transient, the improvement can be remark-
able: Monti and colleagues
52
found an improvement of approxi-
mately 30% and Holland and Crinion
63
report a gain of
approximately 25% in speech performance in aphasic patients.
Intriguingly, no report described negative results in aphasic
patients.
“”″
A quick search for tDCS did not turn up any major discussion newer than 2012 on LW. tDCS devices are now sub $100. Its safety track record seems to be intact. I bought one. There are places to discuss tDCS like on subreddits but I’d like to restart the conversation here with you rationalists.
Recently Radiolab did a piece about it
I’m not sure that they did run sufficient experiments to demonstrate safety.
I’ll admit that the basis for my statement is from the seemingly lack of much negative user reports or studies that reported high negative reactions regarding safety, rather than experiments specifically demonstrating safety.
This seems really interesting. I’d like to learn more about it. So far I’m frustrated with the quality of information I’ve found. Here’s a PMC search and a review behind a firewall.
Here you go: https://pdf.yt/d/I3KvgDrqP-uVjm0e / https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85192141/2014-priori.pdf
Thanks! Lest it confuse anyone else, please note that that review is all about effects of tDCS on the cerebellum and not a review of tDCS on the cerebrum or other brain structures. The cerebelar tDCS itself seems to have many effects including cerebellar motor cortical inhibition, gait adaptation, motor behaviour, and cognition (learning, language, memory, attention), though.
Here’s a general review of the effect of tDCS on language
“”″ Despite their heterogeneities, the studies we reviewed collect- ively show that tDCS can improve language performance in healthy subjects and in patients with aphasia ( fi gure 4). Although relatively transient, the improvement can be remark- able: Monti and colleagues 52 found an improvement of approxi- mately 30% and Holland and Crinion 63 report a gain of approximately 25% in speech performance in aphasic patients. Intriguingly, no report described negative results in aphasic patients. “”″
EDIT:
Interestingly, there’s limited evidence that it can be effective for patients suffering from autism too. E.g. case study finding 40% reduction in abnormal behavior for a severe case and improved language learning for minimally verbal children with autism.