Boosting Your Brain For Gaming

Written On  4/19/11 By Recentpoker.com staff writer Emily Apontif :

You should definitely not try this at home!
 
University of Mexico researchers claim that by applying low levels of electrical current to different parts of the brain via electrodes placed on the scalp, they have documented some significant changes in brain activity, which vary depending on the part of the brain targeted.
 
In one experiment in which volunteers were recorded while playing a video game, the researchers reported that:  "Those receiving 2 milliamps to the scalp (about one-five-hundredth the amount drawn by a 100-watt light bulb) showed twice as much improvement in the game after a short amount of training as those receiving one-twentieth the amount of current."
 
The electric current was produced by a device running on a 9-volt battery and delivered to the volunteers via a moistened sponge applied to their right temple.
 
Warren Grill, a neural engineer at Duke University, North Carolina, commented on the principles involved, noting that very little is known about how TDCS ( transcranial direct current stimulation) works.
 
In boffin-speak: The theory is that the mild current primes the neurons for action but does not trigger the voltage spikes that neurons use to communicate.
 
"Presumably, it is polarising neurons and making them more or less likely to respond to inputs," says Grill. "But what's happening at the level of the synapse, where the business of learning really takes place, we don't know."
 
That said, this is probably not something you'd want to play with at home whilst gambling…