Focus

[Philip Chee]

Electric shocks to brain help students solve maths problems, scientists say

People who struggle with maths problems might fare better after a course
of gentle electric shocks to the brain, scientists have claimed.

Psychologists at Oxford University found that students scored higher on
mental arithmetic tasks after a five-day course of brain stimulation....

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/may/16/electric-shocks-brain-maths-scientists>

Phil

--
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http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
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[Keith F. Lynch]

Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> Electric shocks to brain help students solve maths problems,
> scientists say

"Okay, I'll study harder, I'll do whatever it takes to ace the test,
just please don't tase me again. Please."

> People who struggle with maths problems might fare better after
> a course of gentle electric shocks to the brain, scientists
> have claimed.

Have they also tested gentle whipping? Lightly branding? Playful
kicks to the groin? Soft waterboarding? Fun mock executions?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[Lowell Gilbert]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> Electric shocks to brain help students solve maths problems,
>> scientists say
>
> "Okay, I'll study harder, I'll do whatever it takes to ace the test,
> just please don't tase me again. Please."
>
>> People who struggle with maths problems might fare better after
>> a course of gentle electric shocks to the brain, scientists
>> have claimed.
>
> Have they also tested gentle whipping? Lightly branding? Playful
> kicks to the groin? Soft waterboarding? Fun mock executions?

The brain has no nerves, so this explanation doesn't work; at least, not
without further expansion.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Every route into the brain has nerves.

[Lowell Gilbert]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Have they also tested gentle whipping? Lightly branding? Playful
>>> kicks to the groin? Soft waterboarding? Fun mock executions?
>
>> The brain has no nerves, so this explanation doesn't work; at least,
>> not without further expansion.
>
> Every route into the brain has nerves.

I haven't looked up the equipment in question, but apparently the shocks
are induced right through the skull.

I very much doubt that there was physical pain involved, as that would
be considered unethical for this type of study, and very much so for the
control group. But I admit to not being entirely sure, as I couldn't, in
the 15 minutes I was willing to spend researching, find an explanation
of the technique that I could really understand.

[Kevrob]

On May 18, 11:07 am, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> Lowell Gilbert <lguse...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
> > "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> >> Have they also tested gentle whipping?  Lightly branding?  Playful
> >> kicks to the groin?  Soft waterboarding?  Fun mock executions?
> > The brain has no nerves, so this explanation doesn't work; at least,
> > not without further expansion.
>
> Every route into the brain has nerves.
> --
>

I went to Catholic school, back when they still had sisters in habits
teaching. We didn't have gentle whipping, but knuckles applied to
the back of the head, and short hairs on the neck or ears were pulled,
to elicit concentration. The classic ruler or yardstick applied to
the back of the hand was in evidence, but rarely, as waving the weapon
in the student's direction usually did the trick.

This wasn't confined just to math class, so I don't know how that
would effect the study.

Kevin R

[Thomas Womack]

In article <447giw6...@lowell-desk.lan>,

Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
>"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
>> Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
>>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>>> Have they also tested gentle whipping? Lightly branding? Playful
>>>> kicks to the groin? Soft waterboarding? Fun mock executions?
>>
>>> The brain has no nerves, so this explanation doesn't work; at least,
>>> not without further expansion.
>>
>> Every route into the brain has nerves.
>
>I haven't looked up the equipment in question, but apparently the shocks
>are induced right through the skull.

I've been the guineapig in an experiment with transcranial _magnetic_
stimulation (more because I had fallen for the grad student running
the experiment than out of the pure desire to promote scientific
knowledge), which was entirely painless but didn't seem to *do*
anything.

http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2011/11/21/from-simulated-to-actual-annea/
in the paragraph beginning 'And in case you think' says that no
subject was able to distinguish the random-noise stimulation from
applying the electrodes and not turning on the generator, so it's
clearly not that painful.

Tom

[Keith F. Lynch]

Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
> I haven't looked up the equipment in question, but apparently the
> shocks are induced right through the skull.

And how did they apply current to the skull without going through skin
that contains nerves?

[Keith F. Lynch]

Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I went to Catholic school, back when they still had sisters in
> habits teaching. We didn't have gentle whipping, but knuckles
> applied to the back of the head, and short hairs on the neck or
> ears were pulled, to elicit concentration. The classic ruler or
> yardstick applied to the back of the hand was in evidence, but
> rarely, as waving the weapon in the student's direction usually
> did the trick.

I'm reminded of this post. Note that the author is a physician.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbha...@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.support.attn-deficit,misc.kids,misc.kids.health,alt.drugs,alt.drugs.hard,alt.support.depression.medication,sci.med,alt.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: Epidemic
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 12:49:52 -0700

Melinda Strother wrote:
> ADHD is not a made up condition. No one has any idea how hard
> these conditions are on both parents and the children who struggle
> to pay attention in class to no avail...if it were not for the
> public school system I would not have her on these drugs, but alas
> in order to stay with the pace her school is set at for learning
> she must take them or fall behind and fail her grade and be held
> back for who knows how many times until she has developed enough
> to be able to force herself to focus her mind on what is going on
> at the front of the class.

COMMENT

That used to be done with a hickory stick. Or the nun had a ruler
to slap hands. Fear is the emotion designed to get your attention.
Do you pay attention to the shark in the sea when you're diving,
or do you have attention gap and forget it's there? Amphetamines
simply mimic fear hormones. You focus on the damn shark. This is
not complicated.

So-- the hickory stick. If 30 years ago you had proposed to outlaw
this, and give kids who couldn't pay attention amphetamines, ie,
speed instead, they'd be acusing you of proposing child abuse. So
now, here we are. We actually have replaced the stick with the
pill, but we've renamed everything and we pretend real hard that
this is NOT what we're doing.

Amphetamines are performance enhancers. They make you think faster
(time slows down when you're terrified-- it's just like STOPTIME in
the new movie (HG Wells "New Accelerator"). They make NORMAL people
pay attention better (ie, that shark). They make you run faster,
they make you stronger. They make you better than you were. This
is why they are outlawed in the Olympics, don't you know.

If your kids weren't quite getting on the football team and you gave
them speed to do a little better, they'd try to take your kids away
from you for child abuse. If your kids weren't getting onto the
math team and you gave them speed, they'd accuse you of child abuse
also. BUT if your kids are merely getting C's and you think they're
smart enough to get A's and you can convince some doctor to CALL
this problem by a different name, so that you can give them speed
with society's sanction (we don't call it speed, either), why then
it's all hunky dory. Not child abuse any longer. You're treating a
*disease* (the kids-don't-pay-attention-to-teachers-without-sticks
disease), and you're giving them *medication*. Which is entirely
different than those nasty DRUGS which we lock people up for 100
years for, when they give them to children for nefarious purposes
(or for that matter, when adults studying for exams in college take
these drugs themselves).

SBH

(Who is old enough to remember that children were once told
that drugs were a "crutch." Surprise-- behold a new epidemic
of Tiny Tims.)

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Studies routinely require blood draws from subjects, which clearly
involves some physical pain, so clearly the standards don't rule out
*all* pain under every circumstance.
--
Googleproofaddress(account:dd-b provider:dd-b domain:net)
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[Lowell Gilbert]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
>> I haven't looked up the equipment in question, but apparently the
>> shocks are induced right through the skull.
>
> And how did they apply current to the skull without going through skin
> that contains nerves?

I'm sure the fields went *through* nerves. But that doesn't mean that
the nerves were actually triggered to produce pain sensations in the
process, and your argument (that those currents amount to torture)
depends on some actual pain being involved.

[Keith F. Lynch]

The question is whether it was a disagreeable experience, one which
the subject would be motivated to avoid repetitions of, even if such
avoidance required studying hard for a math test.

[Cryptoengineer]

On May 19, 5:12 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> Lowell Gilbert <lguse...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
> > I'm sure the fields went *through* nerves.  But that doesn't mean
> > that the nerves were actually triggered to produce pain sensations
> > in the process, and your argument (that those currents amount to
> > torture) depends on some actual pain being involved.
>
> The question is whether it was a disagreeable experience, one which
> the subject would be motivated to avoid repetitions of, even if such
> avoidance required studying hard for a math test.

The notion is that the electric fields make it easier for impulses to
make it across synapses. There's a lot of interesting results, but the
field is still the Wild West.(I had to research it a bit at work).

pt

[David Harmon]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 19:07:13 -0700 (PDT) in rec.arts.sf.fandom,
Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote,

>The notion is that the electric fields make it easier for impulses to
>make it across synapses. There's a lot of interesting results, but the
>field is still the Wild West.(I had to research it a bit at work).

Even though it's on sale now.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literally-shocks-your-brain-to-attention/

[Cryptoengineer]

On May 20, 11:14 am, David Harmon <sou...@netcom.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 19 May 2013 19:07:13 -0700 (PDT) in rec.arts.sf.fandom,

> Cryptoengineer <petert...@gmail.com> wrote,

>
> >The notion is that the electric fields make it easier for impulses to
> >make it across synapses. There's a lot of interesting results, but the
> >field is still the Wild West.(I had to research it a bit at work).
>

> Even though it's on sale now.http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literal...

Yes, even though its on sale now. The effects seem to be real, but
exactly what kind of stimulation actually works for what, and what the
long-term effects of the stimulation is, aren't well characterized.

pt

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Harmon <b...@example.invalid> wrote:
> Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote,
>> The notion is that the electric fields make it easier for impulses
>> to make it across synapses. There's a lot of interesting results,

>> but the field is still the Wild West. (I had to research it a bit

>> at work).

> Even though it's on sale now.
> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/the-gaming-headset-that-literally-shocks-your-brain-to-attention/

I'll let others be the guinea pigs. It sounds implausible to me.
Surely brains are all about impulses *selectively* crossing synapses.
The idea that making all impulses more likely to cross synapses would
improve things seems as unlikely as randomly changing some of the 0
bits in this posting to 1 bits would make it a more accurate and
insightful posting.

[Lowell Gilbert]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> Lowell Gilbert <lgus...@be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
>> I'm sure the fields went *through* nerves. But that doesn't mean
>> that the nerves were actually triggered to produce pain sensations
>> in the process, and your argument (that those currents amount to
>> torture) depends on some actual pain being involved.
>
> The question is whether it was a disagreeable experience, one which
> the subject would be motivated to avoid repetitions of, even if such
> avoidance required studying hard for a math test.

The answer to that was "no." Subjects *can* *not* *tell* whether the
device is turned on or not.