{"id":114,"date":"2005-04-29T19:39:53","date_gmt":"2005-04-29T19:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaisan.com\/wordp\/?p=114"},"modified":"2005-04-29T19:39:53","modified_gmt":"2005-04-29T19:39:53","slug":"shocking-news-about-increasing-your-brain-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"Shocking news about increasing your brain power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t worry. Gaisan&#8217;s blog hasn&#8217;t been taken over by one of those spamming bots promoting Human Growth Hormone, a larger appendage or a higher IQ. Still, I read some rather shocking <em>(pardon the terrible pun)<\/em> news from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ninds.nih.gov\/\">US National Institute of Neurological Disorders &#038; Stroke<\/a>. The study investigates the effects of <a href=\"http:\/\/feswww.fes.cwru.edu\/info\/glossaryrg.php\">Functional Electrical Stimulation<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/news\/technology\/0,1282,65620,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html\">wired<\/a> has an article with soundbytes from key staff. It appears that a small (2 mA) current passed through electrodes attached to the surface of the forehead can increase a subjects&#8217; verbal skills. In the study, volunteers were asked to think of as many words as possible that begin with a particular letter. The current was applied and the challenge was reissued. After the current was applied volunteers were able to come up with on average 20% more words. It is hoped that these findings could be used to create a new drugless treatment for neurological illnesses or used to repair brain trauma. The researchers are as yet unclear as to why the current effectively stimulates brain function but Eric Wasserman, a scientist at the institute proposed the following conjecture:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;What we think we&#8217;re doing is changing the electrical environment of neurons and causing them to change their activity,&#8221; said Wassermann.<\/em>><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The only side effects observed so far are a <em>&#8220;tingling senstation&#8221;<\/em> around the area where the electrodes are applied. However <em>&#8220;It&#8217;s unknown whether chronically overdriving an impaired system might cause it to burn out faster&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t worry. Gaisan&#8217;s blog hasn&#8217;t been taken over by one of those spamming bots promoting Human Growth Hormone, a larger appendage or a higher IQ. Still, I read some rather shocking (pardon the terrible pun) news from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders &#038; Stroke. The study investigates the effects of Functional Electrical Stimulation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaisan.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}