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A Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation device sits inside the Psychology Clinical Neuroscience Center at Logan Hall. This device is used to temporarily alter the human nervous system with electricity.  

A Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation device sits inside the Psychology Clinical Neuroscience Center at Logan Hall. This device is used to temporarily alter the human nervous system with electricity.  

Current therapy currently in development

The ancient Greeks, it turns out, may have been on to something.

Recent research at the UNM Psychology Clinical Neuroscience Center suggests that low-level applications of electrical current may temporarily boost brain performance in humans.

Vince Clark, a psychology professor and director of the PCNC, said that by employing a non-invasive technique known as transcranial direct current stimulation, they successfully enhanced test subjects’ working memory dramatically – without the chemical side effects of modern drugs like Adderall.

The technique involves wiring the brain to a nine-volt battery, developing a small current of less than two milliamps as electricity flows from one electrode to the other. Some of this electricity passes into the brain, interacting with the nervous system and altering how it operates for a short period of time, he said.

After wiring them up, Clark asked subjects to perform certain tasks. Using fMRI brain scans, he was able to determine which areas of the brain were most active during each series of tasks.

He then found that by placing electrodes over those areas and sending electric current through them, subjects were able to complete the same tasks much more quickly, he said.

“In the first series of studies we had people identify objects in complex pictures,” Clark said. “It was a difficult task and it took a long time (under normal conditions) for people to learn it really well. However, we found with tDCS people were able to learn it twice as fast, so their ability to learn essentially doubled.”

Clark said the combination of brain studies helped to verify the results to some degree, and guided future studies in determining where to place the electrodes to yield greater results.

Michael Hunter, a Ph.D. student and PCNC research assistant, said that out of the variety brain stimulation techniques in use today, tDCS is unique in that it is used only to enhance performance in existing neural networks.

“The brain communicates via action potentials which are distributed throughout the brain,” Hunter said. “If you are able to change the polarity on those action potentials, then you can enhance particular regions and enhance performance.”

Hunter said tDCS enhance performance by increasing the brain’s electrical potential.Through it, they can either enhance or suppress how an individual area functions and how that area interacts with other areas of the brain.

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While initial results appear promising; Clark said the driving mechanism behind tDCS treatment is not fully understood.

“We think tDCS influences the electrical activity in the synapses and either enhances or suppresses the activity depending on how you do it,” Clark said. “That alters how those areas interact and communicate with each other.”

Raja Parasuraman, psychology professor at George Mason University in Virginia, said he worked closely with Clark in the initial stages of the research, and successfully replicated the results of Clark’s experiment in a separate study.

Parasuraman said the technology might one day have the potential to improve a person’s ability to identify threats and analyze complex situations and images, drawing a lot of attention from national defense initiatives like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

However, both Clark and Parasuraman said the potential applications in medicine and cognitive development will be much more significant.

“I’d like to see straightforward, side-by-side competition between tDCS and antidepressants,” Parasuraman said in an interview with the Atlantic magazine. “May the best thing win.”

For now, Clark said they would continue to explore the possibilities of the emerging technology, and hope their research will reveal other possible applications.

Tomas Lujan is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @TomasVLujan.

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