Electrical Brain Stimulation to Keep You Working?

The Guardian Science Section reported this week that the US military had successfully tested electrical brain stimulation to enhance staff effectiveness and concentration in high pressure situations. The brain stimulation kit uses electrodes to send weak electric currents into the cortex to help neurons to fire and so boost cognitive ability. It is seen as a safer alternative to prescription medication like Modafanil or Ritalin, which have been used before as performance-enhancing drugs in the armed forces. However, while it appears to have no harmful side-effects, of course the long-term effect is unknown.

The original article by Nelson et al. points out that Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) improves multitasking capabilities in human operators. A single blind study conducted on a volunteer group of 20 participants (16 male and 4 female) comparing a control group who thought they were getting tDCS with an experimental group who received the electrical stimulation showed that the group receiving tDCS were significantly better at multitasking, as measured by their ability to process information.

The message is, however, don’t try this at home! The sale of brain stimulation kits is at present unregulated, and at higher than recommended currents could cause brain damage. Oxford scientists writing in 2014 warned that tDCS actually makes some people’s performance on some tasks worse. Caution is advised.

Maybe the rightful use of this in the future might be to help those who have suffered strokes or have early dementia enhance their cognitive abilities, rather than just be used by employers to make us all work harder and more effectively?

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