Dr. Vince Clark University of New Mexico

[Update 10/19] Dr. Clark’s TEDxUNM just in. tDCS starts around 6:45

Dr. Clark is a pioneer of tDCS research. He recently spoke at TEDxUNM (TED talk at the University of New Mexico). I’m eagerly awaiting a video of his talk and will post it as soon as it becomes available. In the intro to Dr. Clark’s talk I found this amazing story.

You really need to read the full story. It outlines Dr. Clark’s journey to diagnose a rare disease that affected his 9 year old boy. tDCS is one of 3 treatment modalities he discussed in his talk…

Clark is already using tDCS to help treat drug addicts and reduce symp­toms in peo­ple with Parkinson’s dis­ease. As a part of this research, Clark is exam­in­ing the abil­ity to use tDCS to treat chronic pain, which he learned about while try­ing to find ways to reduce the amount of pain Ryan suf­fered.  He’s been col­lab­o­rat­ing with other research groups that are hav­ing suc­cess using this pro­ce­dure to reduce pain.

“It might be the first time that some­one has come up with a way to treat pain con­sis­tently, but with­out using a drug,” he added.

Update 10/1/12 Dr. Clark is involved in a new site which “is meant to offer information and links about medical alternatives that are cheaper, safer and more effective than the current standard of care.” SmallerMedicine.com (links to tDCS page).

DIY TMS!

Update 7/25/2018 Reddit user quicksilv3rflash just posted a DIY TMS how-to on Instructables!

Most of us are attracted to the idea of DIY tDCS because of the low entry barrier – a nine volt battery and a simple circuit (at least in theroy). But also because so much of the science literature coming out around tDCS hints at exciting possibilities for enhancing our cognitive abilities. The thought of DIY TMS, with it’s high voltages never occurred to me. I was shocked! to find these videos of DIYer Ben Krasnow on Youtube.
HatTip to Marom Bikson, this came to me by way of his Twitter @MaromBikson

 

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Intensity and Duration Effects on Tinnitus Suppression

Tinnitus has been a part of my life for so long I can’t remember not having it. While it doesn’t seem to bother me the way it does others, it can be very annoying, especially when I’m in a very quiet environment, camping for instance. So it would be incredible if a breakthrough in tinnitus treatment were to come along.

Background. Perception of sound in the absence of an external auditory source is called tinnitus, which may negatively affect quality of life. Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation tDCS of the left temporoparietal area LTA was explored for tinnitus relief. Objective. This pilot study examined tDCS dose current intensity and duration and response effects for tinnitus suppression. Methods. Twenty-five participants with chronic tinnitus and a mean age of 54 years took part. Anodal tDCS of LTA was carried out. Current intensity 1 mA and 2 mA and duration 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes were varied and their impact on tinnitus measured. Results. tDCS was well tolerated. Fifty-six percent of participants 14 experienced transient suppression of tinnitus, and 44% of participants 11 experienced long-term improvement of symptoms overnight—less annoyance, more relaxed, and better sleep. There was an interaction between duration and intensity of the stimulus on the change in rated loudness of tinnitus, F2, 48 = 4.355, P = .018, and clinical global improvement score, F2, 48 = 3.193, P = .050, after stimulation. Conclusions. Current intensity of 2 mA for 20 minutes was the more effective stimulus parameter for anodal tDCS of LTA. tDCS can be a potential clinical tool for reduction of tinnitus, although longer term trials are needed.

Again, this study begs the question: If 2 mA was more effective than 1 mA, why not 3?
P.S. Thanks you know who you are!

via Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Intensity and Duration Effects on Tinnitus Suppression.

Where To Find More Information

I’m calling this the deep data page. I’ll collect links to collections of papers and abstracts that cover tDCS. There is really, a LOT, of information out there and lots more is on the way. I’ll update this page as I come across more articles. If you have a favorite tDCS stash, please share it in the comments.

Vincent Walsh TMS > tDCS & Migraine

Towards the end of the video (The Daily Telegraph 2008) Professor Vincent Walsh, (now of University of California Davis) discusses tDCS and its potential for therapeutic use. Especially of interest is the information on migraine headaches:

So, some migraines are caused by having too much activity in the visual brain area, and some are by having too little activity. And we hope that this can balance out, reverse that relative inactivity in the brain.

Could this imply that one person’s migraine could be mitigated with Cathodal (-) tdcs while another’s might benefit from Anodal (+) application of tDCS? And conversely, does it imply that improper stimulation would lead to MORE migraines?

If I suffered from migraines and wanted to test tDCS, here’s where I’d start:
Check the FisherWallace  Find A Doctor search page for an electrotherapist in your area.
If they will treat you for migraine, try a few sessions. If it works, and your doctor will authorize a purchase, you can buy your own unit (for $700). A FisherWallace device may qualify for insurance coverage.

Alternately, I would monitor the ClinicalTrials.gov site and keep an eye out for new studies testing tDCS for migraine. And lastly, I would contact manufacturers of other tDCS devices and ask if they knew of any electrotherapy practitioners in your area working with migraine. Here’s my short list of manufacturers to contact:

  • Soterix Medical: Are on the cutting edge of all things tDCS and in some of their literature I have seen them mention migraine.
  • MagStim: Another medical-level producer, although I’m not sure these devices are approved for use in the U.S. yet.
  • Alpha-Stim: While they don’t advertize the use of their device for migraine, they do offer many testimonials from people who state they found it beneficial. I have not seen this company associated with any scientific studies or papers.

Anthony Lee Update

Anthony Lee shared the results of his most recent tDCS experiments on Reddit the other night (9/8/12). Using the Cambridge Brain Science Challenge (a set of four tests), he charted his scores over a two month period, comparing results with and without tDCS applied. Check out the video, and if you have questions for Anthony, post them to his Reddit thread.

Induction of visual dream reports after transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCs) during Stage 2 sleep – JAKOBSON – 2012 – Journal of Sleep Research

This is encouraging because a previous study showed minimal effect on dreaming using tDCS.

In both experiments a significantly greater number of imagery reports were found on awakening after tDCs (cathodal–frontal, anodal–parietal), compared to the blank control conditions. However, in Experiment 2 the frequency of imagery reports from the tDCs (cathodal–frontal, anodal–parietal) was not significantly different from the other two tDC conditions, suggesting a non-specific effect of tDCs. Overall, it was concluded that tDCs (cathodal–frontal, anodal–parietal) increased the frequency of dream reports with visual imagery, possibly via a general arousing effect and/or recreating specific cortical neural activity involved in dreaming.

via Induction of visual dream reports after transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCs) during Stage 2 sleep – JAKOBSON – 2012 – Journal of Sleep Research – Wiley Online Library. Full pdf.

Where Do The Electrodes Go?

Update 9/6/12: Found for the first time, a study which equates electrode placement directly with the 10/20 positioning system. The study, Modulating activity in the motor cortex affects performance for the two hands differently depending upon which hemisphere is stimulated, was published in the European Journal of Neuroscience in 2008 and is available to download as a pdf or read in Quick View.

On each day, there was one session for anodal and one for cathodal tDCS, administered while the participants sat in an office chair. On the first day, participants also underwent one session of sham tDCS. For the anodal and cathodal sessions, 1 mA tDCS was applied for 20 min. On one of the testing days, the active electrode was positioned over the participant’s left- hemisphere motor region, centered on C3 of the 10–20 international electroencephalogram system; on the other day, the active electrode was positioned over the motor region of the right hemisphere (centered on C4 of the 10–20 electroencephalogram system). The correspon- dence between C3, C4 and the primary motor cortices of the left and right hemispheres, respectively, has been confirmed by neuroimaging studies (Homan et al., 1987; Herwig et al., 2003; Okamoto et al., 2004)

http://www.bem.fi/book/13/13.htm#03

[Source of the above image is probably http://www.bem.fi/book/13/13.htm
where it’s referred to as “Location and nomenclature of the intermediate 10% electrodes, as standardized by the American Electroencephalographic Society. (Redrawn from Sharbrough, 1991).” The author seems to also have it available on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321094865_Bioelectromagnetism_13_Electroencephalography ]

While the 10/20 positioning system (wikipedia, pdf) does seem straight-forward and easy to understand, most of the electrode sites mentioned in the publications I’m reading don’t refer to it in describing where electrodes are being placed. You’re more likely to see something like: “…after bifrontal tDCS with the anode over the right and the cathode over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).”

But if laypeople are going to be experimenting on themselves, wouldn’t they need some sort of standard reference to enable sharing of specific electrode sites? Wouldn’t you like to be able to say something like, I placed the anode over the right dorsolateral prefronal cortex at F3 and the cathode over the left at F7? In that way it would be easy for someone else to replicate. I was looking for a diagram that would map the 10/20 system over brain regions, but didn’t find exactly what I was looking for. If you have any ideas about this please share in the comments.

In the meantime here are a couple of basic brain info sites I found. These tend toward more basic information.
Healthline Brain Map
Cold Springs Harbor 3d Brain Map

Alan Snyder and Michael Weisend on Through The Wormhole

Ted pointed this out to me in a comment. We’ve met both Alan Snyder and Michael Weisend elsewhere on the blog. This video sums up nicely the areas they’re working in. Anyone else alarmed at the thought of there being a pressing need to fill drone pilot seats and that perhaps tDCS could cut training time in half?

Photo links to YouTube video.

Michael-Weisend-Mind-Research-Network

Michael Weisend Mind Research Network

Obviously we don’t have access to fMRI, yet. But the method Wesiend is demonstrating in the video certainly seems the way to go: Isolate the area of the brain used in the desired skill, and then apply tDCS to facilitate learning.

This is definitely a pattern-recognition type of experiment.

fMRI Showing Medial Temporal Lobe Activity

fMRI Showing Medial Temporal Lobe Activity

…When you are a novice, there’s low-level activation in the medial temporal lobes. But in experts, there’s very high-level activation. And so we targeted tDCS at these areas that increase activity in order to accelerate training. (This is context of drone pilot training)

ActivaDose Device

ActivaDose Device

electrode

Electrode

electrode harness

Electrode Harness

I need help identifying and understanding this electrode setup. Note that it’s the same electrode being used in this shot from a Scientific America article discussing the same research. If there was an electrode in the middle of the cluster, that might be the Anode and the surrounding electrodes could be Cathodes (as seems to be what is developing around HD-tDCS). But a symmetrical 5 node electrode cluster is confusing me.

Image By Richard McKinley USAF

I was trying to understand why Soterix (Marom Bikson) would be developing devices that could administer 8 channels of tDCS simultaneously. Putting the pieces of these articles, papers, and videos together, it becomes pretty clear that tDCS, used to enhance training, especially in military (DOD) contexts, could be hugely profitable.

P.S. In this study, published in the Jan 2012 issue of Neuroimage, Weisend reports using fMRI to locate optimal tDCS application area. Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall.
TDCS guided using fMRI significantly accelerates learning to identify concealed objects
.

Anodal 2.0 mA tDCS performed for 30 min over these regions in a series of single-blind, randomized studies resulted in significant improvements in learning and performance compared with 0.1 mA tDCS. This difference in performance increased to a factor of two after a one-hour delay. A dose-response effect of current strength on learning was also found.

Valkee – Transcranial Bright Light Therapy

I discovered the Valkee today through a new press release (8/28/12) but it’s been around for some time now [lengthy rather amusing Slashdot thread from Aug. 2011].

Bright light therapy has been shown to be an effective cure for seasonal depression. New Finnish research reveals that bright light therapy, when administered through the ear canal directly to the photosensitive brain tissue, offers benefits for those not suffering from seasonal depression at all, as it improves the cognitive performance and mood of the healthy, too.

The new studies are linked to on the Valkee Evidence page.
Previous studies have shown Transcranial Bright Light Therapy to be effective in treating Seasonal Depression Disorder (SAD) but in a new study, Finnish hockey players improved their ‘motoric reaction speed’.
See Also: Stimulating brain tissue with bright light alters functional connectivity in brain at the resting state

Valkee seems to be targeted towards travelers anticipating jet lag, or those in Northern climates where winter exposure to light is limited. But the Valkee Benefits page mentions everything from PMS to ‘reduced carbohydrate cravings’.
“Valkee has CE Class II(a) medical device certification and is clinically tested.”
“Valkee currently does not ship into the US, but we will soon!” And you can sign up to be notified.Valkee Transcranial Bright Light Device

Valkee

Photo links to more Valkee marketing material.

 

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS) Targeted Using Brain Imaging Accelerates Learning

From (I believe) a talk in 2010 given at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping by Dr. Vince Clark, director of the Clinical Neuroscience Center at the  University of New Mexico (and previously, director of the Mind Research Network). The slides reference a study where tDCS was used in training subjects to accurately detect hidden and camouflaged objects, as in a military setting. What caught my eye, something I don’t recall seeing anywhere else, is the comparison of effectiveness of different amounts of current. It begs the question: If 2 mA is more effective than 1 mA, what about 3 mA? [As Peter points out in his comment, the chart actually contrasts effects of 2 mA and  0.1 mA as a control. I do still think it’s a good question: Why 2 mA?]. Much I don’t understand in the slides without the talk to go along with, but have a look  pdf, Quick View. And a link (abstract) to what appears to me a follow-up study. P.S. After tracking all this down I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to not be able to access the full texts of these studies, especially when we (NiH, DOD) paid for them. If you can get me a copy I would
greatly appreciate it.

mind Research Network Vince Clark 1

mind Research Network Vince Clark 2

 

‘Thinking caps’ are pseudoscience masquerading as neuroscience | Science | guardian.co.uk

Certainly a little perspective is warranted from time to time.

Instead, Chi and Snyder’s study suffers from a catalogue of confounding factors and logical flaws. The most important of these is the “Nostradamus” problem: that by failing to control for alternative explanations, their results – like the writings of the famous French prophet – are open to a multitude of possible interpretations.

Snyder’s participants solved maths puzzles that the researchers claim required “insight”, yet crucially the subjects did not perform any other tasks to show that only puzzles requiring “insight” were influenced by the brain stimulation. This flaw means that any interpretation of the results is defined chiefly by two words: “maybe” and “or”.

Rather than encouraging novel thinking, maybe brain stimulation made participants less cautious in reaching a decision, or maybe it helped them recall a similar problem seen a few minutes earlier, or maybe it made them temporarily less distractible (or even dulled their hearing), or maybe it boosted general alertness (not surprisingly, people tend to do things faster and better when they are more awake).

via ‘Thinking caps’ are pseudoscience masquerading as neuroscience | Science | guardian.co.uk.

Amping Up Brain Function: Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning: Scientific American

Another group of researchers hot on the trail how tDCS might be used to enhance brain function is the (non-profit) Mind Research Network of Albuquerque, NM. A lot of their work is funded by NiH, but what I’ve seen around their tDCS research pertains to increasing soldier’s ability to detect danger, and is funded by DOA (2010 Research Report pdf) Unfortunately I was not able to find a full version of the paper not behind a pay wall. The abstract is here and from a Scientific America article…

Subjects definitely register the stimulation, but it is not unpleasant. “It feels like a mild tickling or slight burning,” says undergraduate student Lauren Bullard, who was one of the subjects in another study on TDCS and learning reported at the meeting, along with her mentors Jung and Michael Weisend and colleagues of the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque. “Afterward I feel more alert,” she says. But why?

Bullard and her co-authors sought to determine if they could measure any tangible changes in the brain after TDCS, which could explain how the treatment accelerates learning. The researchers looked for both functional changes in the brain (altered brain-wave activity) and physical changes (by examining MRI brain scans) after TDCS.

They used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to record magnetic fields (brain waves) produced by sensory stimulation (sound, touch and light, for example), while test subjects received TDCS. The researchers reported that TDCS gave a six-times baseline boost to the amplitude of a brain wave generated in response to stimulating a sensory nerve in the arm. The boost was not seen when mock TDCS was used, which produced a similar sensation on the scalp, but was ineffective in exciting brain tissue. The effect also persisted long after TDCS was stopped. The sensory-evoked brain wave remained 2.5 times greater than normal 50 minutes after TDCS. These results suggest that TDCS increases cerebral cortex excitability, thereby heightening arousal, increasing responses to sensory input, and accelerating information processing in cortical circuits.

Remarkably, MRI brain scans revealed clear structural changes in the brain as soon as five days after TDCS. Neurons in the cerebral cortex connect with one another to form circuits via massive bundles of nerve fibers (axons) buried deep below the brain’s surface in “white matter tracts.” The fiber bundles were found to be more robust and more highly organized after TDCS. No changes were seen on the opposite side of the brain that was not stimulated by the scalp electrodes.

via Amping Up Brain Function: Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning: Scientific American.

GoFlow Update!

Just to reiterate, I have no association with GoFlow, just sharing the news.

Hey All,

Sorry for the long hiatus, we know we’ve been quite way too long.

We wanted to let you know that we are still working on the GoFlow project, and give you a hint or two of whats coming next.

We’ve been taking the last two months to “science up” and run more extended self tests. Any risk we can mitigate by taking the time to become more informed and test our device thoroughly is more than worth the delay from our end.

We have been getting tons of feedback to the contrary from some of you, and trust us we empathize. We did build one and use it on ourselves with very minimal research and testing. We can’t in good faith do that to our community. We say that fully appreciating the irony there..

We are continuing the development process as fast as our limited resources and time allow, and we will be much more communicative as we continue.

Stay tuned for updates and always feel free to email us with questions!


The GoFlow Team