An app for better eyesight?

A couple of weeks ago I came upon an article citing research that found it was possible to train ones eyes for better vision, or rather, the visual processing areas of the brain. With ULTIMEYES costing only a few dollars, I thought there was little to lose.

I've only put in a couple of session, so it's far too early to say how well the process has worked for me. Once I have something worth while to share, I'll update the blog.

OpenStim photos

I decided to take a few pictures of my OpenStim build. The plans call for a 17ohm resistor, but I had none in my parts bin, so had to improvise. The breadboard (and even the full blown Arduino) was meant to be temporary until I could make the whole thing pretty on a perfboard, though I've yet to get around to such.

Perhaps I'll order parts and build a unit that better meets the standard set by the OpenStim project.

Xanthinol nicotinate study

I was looking up xanthinol nicotinate, a supplement ingredient I hadn't heard of before, and came upon this study on PubMed.

The treatment effect of nicotinic acid and xanthinol nicotinate on human memory was compared with placebo in 96 healthy subjects. Forty-three subjects were young (35-45 years), 30 subjects middle aged (55-65 years) and 23 subjects were old aged (75-85 years). Pre- and post-treatment scores were measured on a battery of memory tasks, covering sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. The treatment regime was 1 dragee t.i.d. for 8 weeks. The administration of xanthinol nicotinate (500 mg, containing 141.7 mg nicotinic acid), nicotinic acid (141.7 mg) and placebo (lactose) was double-blind. Pre- and post-treatment scores were analysed by means of a multivariate covariance technique, the pre-treatment score serving as covariate. Nicotinic acid treatment resulted in improvement of sensory register and short-term memory, while xanthinol nicotinate improved sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. In comparison with placebo, both active compounds yielded improvements of 10-40%, depending on type of task. Treatment effects of nicotinic acid were predominantly found in the young and middle-aged, whereas treatment effects of xanthinol nicotinate were predominantly found in the old. These results are interpreted by the supposed activity of nicotinic acid at the cell membrane, improving neuronal transmission, and of xanthinol nicotinate inside the cell, enhancing cell metabolism and oxygen supply in the brain.

I'm certainly not endorsing this or any supplement, necessarily, though I found it rather interesting, and thought others interested in tDCS may as well. In the past, I've ordered and used a number of supplements that supposedly help with cognition, though didn't follow through with use for long enough to render any benefits. That said, I think it's always worth spending the time to read about the chemicals that you're putting into your body, as opposed to going off advertising. It seems like raspberry ketone is all the rage right now, despite there being no evidence for it assisting in weightloss in humans.

Anyway, I'll try to get some more substantive tDCS stuff up before too long - I have some time off soon and may spend some time with tDCS sessions.

My pre-treatment scores

In my previous post, I described a method for establishing a a pseudo-control data set to be compared with post tDCS treatments. Over the past couple of days, I've carried out repeated each test two or three times in order to generate such data for myself. My results are posted below.

Test	Iterations	Scores
Monkey Ladder	4	6, 7, 6, 8
Spatial Span	2	6, 6
Digit Span	2	7, 8
Paired Associates	2	4, 5
Double Trouble*	2	56, 58
Object Reasoning	2	21, 24
Odd One Out	3	11, 13, 13
Rotations	3	48, 42, 79
Spatial Search	3	7, 8, 9

*Double Trouble - This was a test I had started to play with months ago when I first started experimenting with tDCS. I have roughly a dozen data points, which show a somewhat linear progression from a score of roughly 30 to a high of 60. The reported scores above represent only my latest attempts, and it's been months since my high score of 60 - this suggests that either tDCS effects are much longer lasting than the the research suggests, or the ability to perform in the 99% in this task has been retained from practice (I'm assuming the latter is true). As such, post-treatment data must be examined with additional caution. 

Cambridge Brain Sciences - creating a (pseudo) control.

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm going to attempt to systematically document my experimentation with tDCS. Because I'm only an individual, that is, without a lab, test subjects, funding for experimentation, I don't   have the ability to create a control group to compare results to. To work around this, I can only run tests on myself, before tDCS sessions and after (making the note any "pre" testing sessions need to have happened long enough the last session such that any effect had long since worn off).

Enter Cambridge Brain Sciences, a site which offers, "scientifically proven tools for the assessment of cognitive function over the web." Running the various tests several times ought to establish rough control. While there will be some impact on latter tests due to a bias from practice, familiarity, results should become somewhat consistent. Perhaps someone with a better handle on statistics knows a more straight forward method than this, but if tDCS sessions are indeed making a measurable impact, such should be observable by comparing control results with post-session tests.

OpenStim - hardware assembled.

I'm excited to explore the possibilities that OpenStim may bring about. I'll share my thoughts once I spend some time with it. For now, the hardware is put together and passing diagnostics.

Welcome to my tDCS Blog

After posting about some of my experimentation with transcranial direct current stimulation elsewhere, I decided that I'd dedicate dedicate a blog centralizing on the subject.

It's now been six or eight weeks since I've had a tDCS session, so I assume that any measurable impact the treatment would have on my brain have  long since worn off. This seems like a perfect time to start again from square one, documenting my findings as I go. While I'm not an medical professional, let alone a neuroscientist, I will make efforts to report my findings in the least subjective way possible.