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Soon you will download skills into your BRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIN.

2K views 6 replies 7 participants last post by  haimen 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I remember reading something a while back about how a shock to your brain of some sorts could help you learn to be fluent in another language. Lemme see if I can find it.

Edit: Not having any luck, but it may have been a Lumosity.com blog article now that I think of it.
 
#4 ·
We do similar(ish) things in our lab although we use transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) or transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) rather than neurofeedback fMRI. tDCS and tRNS excite or inhibit areas of the cortex by passing very small electrical currents over your areas of interest. Inhibit an area and you will reduce or stop the behaviour associated with that area of cortex, excite and you increase behaviour (in theory anyway). One of the studies we did recently involved pairing English words with Swahili words. Without going into too much detail, participants who received tRNS to parietal lobes learned significantly more associations than those with sham stimulation (they think they are getting zapped but they aren't), or those stimulated over temporal lobes. This increased learning was also maintained over 7 days of no further stimulation. In a nutshell, it seems that we can increase the rapidity of language learning by stimulation of the associated brain areas. An associate at Oxford University has been using similar techniques for arithmetic, with some excellent results.

We have study coming up where we are going to use tRNS to see if we can improve line orientation discrimination ie quickly present a diagonal line at a particular slope followed by one at a different slope the participant has to indicate whether the 2nd line is steeper or shallower. Catch is , we blindfold the participant and the lines are auditory representations of the visual stimulus. We already have good evidence that the 'perceptual' brain is a function based task machine rather than one that is compartmentalized based on sensory input and that areas of the brain usually associated with a particular sense (eg visual cortex) can be recruited via neuroplastic connectivity to carry out tasks usually associated with a different sensory modality. As the algorithms we use are non-arbitrary visual information is stored in the soundscape and therefore with training (time to allow for plastic changes) the 'auditory' line will be represented in visual cortex. Therefore stimulation of associative areas known for visual spatial tasks should also improve the 'auditory' spatial task.

The brain is amazing. A head full of mush and electrical currents that dictate all you think, feel and do - unless you're a dualist of course - and we can 'play' with it using non-invasive methods.

Want to 'play'? Anybody in the south of England who wants their brain fried give me a shout.
;)
We also have a whisky tasting experiment coming up where we will try and manipulate the 'taste' of whisky by manipulating other elements of the sensory environment. No brain stimulation involved but there will be free whisky.

Apologies for the lengthy post and jumping on this thread a year later.
 
#5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by supermodified View Post

[...]

The brain is amazing. A head full of mush and electrical currents that dictate all you think, feel and do - unless you're a dualist of course - and we can 'play' with it using non-invasive methods.

Want to 'play'? Anybody in the south of England who wants their brain fried give me a shout.
;)
We also have a whisky tasting experiment coming up where we will try and manipulate the 'taste' of whisky by manipulating other elements of the sensory environment. No brain stimulation involved but there will be free whisky.
If i'd still be around i'd definitely pass by for the frying. Reading the singularity is near right now which is also on basically improving ourselves via technology, including brain implants ( aka surpassing the biological evolution ). Read a book or two a while ago also about improving ourselves with drugs for the same kind of results.

Let me tell you thought that "play the piano, reduce mental stress, or even master kung fu" requires more than just mental knowledge of how to. Piano takes sensitivity, stress is dependant on emotions and kung fu takes muscle memory and for those that believe in it, chi. Overall reducing them to simple knowledge is just missing on a lot. But yes, it helps, and languages will be learn in a second sooner or later.
 
#7 ·
its amazing thing to know. makes us so much curious but..... when i see reality its just myth and never gonna happen these kinds of things. as a human we have some limitations which are beyond our hand there are things which we can not change or alter because these things are basic units of life it mind is tweak able then all humanity will suffer there will be annihilation around us. there is only one way you can download information in human brain that is learning
 
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