Tag Archives: Dual N-Back

Experimenting with electricity | Al Jazeera America

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[Update 5/1/16] Perhaps with the unfortunate demise of Al Jazeera America, they have posted their TechKnow series online. We’re now able to watch the episode that featured Erica and Jeff and tDCS.

Exactly! Erica and Jeff have decided on a self-testing protocol I believe will effectively measure their tDCS results. Dual N-Back (online requires Silverlight) or download Brain Workshop.

By the time you read this there should also be a video interview at the TechKnow site.
Jeff’s (Boinger) Open tDCS: tDCS Regulation Circuits – Open Source Hardware project on GitHub: https://github.com/boinger/tdcs
Jeff’s DIY part list: https://github.com/boinger/tdcs/blob/master/bom.csv
And PCB board: https://github.com/boinger/tdcs/blob/master/board.png
Follow Jeff’s Reddit thread.: http://www.reddit.com/r/tDCS/comments/2hguka/experimenting_with_electricity_interview_from/

TechKnow: How do you plan on measuring your progress with the tDCS headset?
Erica: So I’m using a brain training game called Dual N-Back. So far I’ve tracked my progress with the game without using the tDCS, and I plan to use tDCS, and then practice the game and see how far I can get.
TechKnow: Are you going to record this information? Do you plan on making it available to other people?
Erica: I plan to track the amount of time I’m spending using tDCS and how well I’m performing in the game to see what is correlated.

via Experimenting with electricity | Al Jazeera America.

Foc.us Firmware – Still to Come…

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A string of Foc.us news and updates over the last few days warrants our attention. Again, I’m very impressed with these announcements. Someone sat down and got very serious about creating a device/software that would fulfill everyone’s home use tDCS wish list. (Note: Have yet to see feedback from anyone actually using or having tested the Foc.us vs2 firmware upgrade yet. Will report when I do.) From the Foc.us blog. Upcoming features:

Here is an outline list of the features we will be adding to the foc.us firmware over the next few weeks

  • Calibrate – find your current and voltage for each mode
  • Save, share and download new programs
  • Motion sensor – activity tracking capability
  • Customisations – device name, pin, lock mode
  • Games – nback, dual n-back, arrow game
  • Bluetooth Low Energy support for new iOS and Android apps
  • Realtime Clock – ability to set session start time in the future
  • Vibro buzzer feedback
  • Multilingual translations

Amrex-type electrode support:
focusAmrexAdaptor

And a detailed description of the thoughts around security and what goes into their firmware updates. Impressed!

via FOC.US — foc.us firmware – still to come….

I want to be your neuroscience experiment | Al Jazeera America

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My sense is that the author’s experience is very similar to that of most tDCS DIYers – an initial flurry of interest followed by frustration at not knowing if ‘it’s working’. That’s why it’s exciting to see easily replicated protocols for self-testing emerging around the Dual N-Back game that is available for free. http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/download.html

A device mentioned in the article is J.D. Leadam’s ‘Brain Stimulator’ http://thebrainstimulator.net (No affiliation)

We’d decided to try the “accelerated learning” montage that had been developed and tested by DARPA. The best test of the device we could come up with was to play Nintendo Wii Mario Kart while brain zapping for 20 minutes — our performance seemed easily measurable (we would just play the same course, over and over) and a lot less violent. At first I was miserable, my green dinosaur avatar, Yoshi, falling off the track on every hairpin turn and barely finishing the course in 3:30. By the end, though, I was cracking 3:00. Of course, there was no control here, no way to tell whether I was simply learning a new skill, but I was cautiously optimistic.

In the weeks that followed, I stuck to it, undertaking 20 minutes of tDCS four to five days a week. I decided to try to teach myself interactive web design, and whenever I’d run the current through my brain, I’d accompany it with 20 minutes on Code Academy, the teach-yourself-to-code megasite. But after a few weeks, the results I was looking for seemed elusive. I was obviously getting better at coding, but there was no way for me to know what role the electricity was playing. And it was still kind of painful. So I quit, and about two months after visiting Bikson’s lab, my tDCS device is gathering dust on a shelf in my office.

via I want to be your neuroscience experiment | Al Jazeera America.