How is it twice as effective as improving performance over caffeine intake?

ByTahir Hashmi

There is a way to drink coffee or red bull and take caffeine to drowsiness, but it is twice as effective in improving performance than caffeine intake, the duration of the effect is as long as 6 hours, For those who fight drowsiness every day, there is a dreamy drowsiness method.

Electrical brain stimulation beats caffeine - and the effect lasts longer | Science | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/19/electrical-brain-stimulation-caffeine


A way to exert a much better drowsiness arousal effect than caffeine intake is to "give electrical stimulation to the brain". Researchers at Light Patterson Air Force Base in New Carlisle, Ohio, USA are studying this method. It seems to be a research that is done to improve the performance of officials who are having a sleep deprivation working at the base by applying electrical stimulation to the brain.

U.S. Army is considering "alarm clock" with electric shock instead of caffeine - GIGAZINE


Why are you studying such a wake-up method? At the Air Force base, people who are in work like "keep on watching images from unmanned reconnaissance aircraft", that is, most of the time sitting at chairs There are people who are in jobs that are likely to be attacked by drowsiness even by listening to the fact that they continue to see similar images displayed on the monitor. I am studying the drowsiness method other than caffeine ingestion so as to help those people even a little.

Andy McKinley, who is studying drowsiness using electric stimulus, said, "There are many information missions in the Air Force, and in the back end numerous analysts monitor vehicles, buildings and various other targets This kind of image analysis work is not suitable for automation, and computer's algorithm can not autoselect the target.Some reasons for that reason, human beings do not do work that keeps looking at the same screen endlessly It will be obligatory, but if it helps human being to be able to concentrate for a longer time, it is very wonderful. "

ByStephen Korecky

Mr. McKinley and his colleagues conducted experiments with 30 staff members working at bases between the ages of 18 and 42. In the experiment, we asked the examinees to report their condition every two hours, and we were able to find "points that glow while moving in the circle", "like 12 dots in 30 minutes, dots bounced" Have them take vigilance tests and wait until 4 am while checking whether the subject's head is working securely. And at 4 am when the cognitive ability of humans is the lowest, we will divide the subjects into three groups.

In the first group we attach electrodes to the head and eat gum containing caffeine. However, we do not actually conduct electric current, we pretend to give electric stimulation to the subjects. In the second group, let chewing gum not contain caffeine be caffeined, eat it, and give the brain electrical stimulation for about 30 minutes from the electrode attached to the head. In addition, the electrical stimulation is added to the short-term memory and attention to the left brainPrefrontal cortexis. Then, let the third group eat gum without caffeine, pretend to give the electrical stimulation by attaching the electrode to the head. In other words, we do not add any stimulus to the third group. To experiment with eating gum without caffeine or applying an electric current to the head with an electrode is to determine whether the experimental result is due to the placebo effect or not.

ByLaura Dahl

Results of these experiments, the group with the electrical stimulation of the brain obviously improved the performance better than the other groups, and more surprisingly, the performance improvement seems to have continued for a long time.

"The group that gave electrical stimulation to the brain demonstrated the same level of performance over six hours but other groups have suddenly exacerbated performance," Mr. McKinley said. According to him, when the alertness test was carried out at 8 am, the correct rate of the group given electrical stimulation was 60%, while the accuracy rate of other groups was less than 30% . Besides, the group which gave electrical stimulation gave better results than the other groups in the test of fatigue, drowsiness, vitality, mood etc.

In addition, although caffeine can immediately affect human performance, the fact that it takes less than 2 hours to demonstrate effective effectSociety for NeuroscienceIt is revealed by.

ByDamien du Toit

What is used in experiments conducted at Light Patterson Air Force base is "TDCS(Transcranial direct current stimulation) ", which is to make brain neurons easier to ignite than usual.

Devices for tDCS and similar devices are already on the market, and the structure itself is very simple, so some users are making themselves. Actually many ordinary users have used the device for tDCS to stimulate the brain and upload the results to YouTube, blogs, bulletin boards and so on.

An attempt to hack my brain with DIY to increase brain performance - GIGAZINE


However, in August Nick Davis, a psychologist at the University of Swansea, said, "The risks that can happen by non-knowledgeable general people giving electrical stimulation to the brain"Pointing outAnd also from researchers at Oxford UniversitySimilar pointed outBecause it is crowded, it seems better to leave off hands by the imitator 's look.