Posted on 06/04/2014 9:35:46 AM PDT by Theoria
Shocking the brain with mild electrical current was once a controversial treatment for the mentally ill. Now evidence is emerging that it could quicken learning and improve attention, and as Emma Young discovers, the US military is very interested in its potential.
An unusual trial is underway at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. An airman sits at a monitor in a laboratory, wired up with electrodes, his jacket slung over the back of his chair. Plane-shaped icons keep entering his airspace. He has to decide whether each incoming plane is a friend or a foe. If it’s a foe, he must send a warning. If it flies off, fine. If it doesn’t, he must bring it down. The lab is silent, apart from the bleeps as he hits the buttons, and the smash as a software missile destroys an uncooperative plane.
The Wright-Patterson base is rich in aviation history. In and around this area, Wilbur and Orville Wright conducted pioneering experiments into flight. What they helped to start continues here, at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Now the AFRL includes the 711th Human Performance Wing, whose mission is to “advance human performance in air, space and cyberspace”.
The aim of the trial today is to investigate whether stimulating the brain with a mild electrical current can improve the performance of military personnel. Will it work?
Trans-cranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been investigated as a possible treatment in healthcare for decades. In the 1980s, for example, it became clear that applying mild electrical currents to the brain could help patients with severe depression for whom the drugs did nothing.
Yet it wasn’t until the 2000s that neuroscientists realised tDCS could change the brain functioning of healthy people – a discovery that got the military interested.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
**Now evidence is emerging that it could quicken learning and improve attention...**
Great. Now any youngster who has previously been ‘diagnosed’ with ADD is a candidate to get their brains fried.
The end game goal is mind control. The first order of business is to outlaw any veteran who owns firearms. I am not joking. Next is the adoption of UN “laws.” If Harry Reid does not bring their agenda up for a vote, it becomes enforceable. This includes gun laws, international taxes,the right to sue, food rights, etc. I am not making this up. Google it.
Our physical therapist is using E-stim to try to wake up our son’s nerves in his left foot. It is fascinating.
The drugs are probably doing a good job of that already.
Oh, great! Brain-fried robo-warriors.
“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.”
Wrong. This and other attempts to control the mind, or to “fix” the brain with electrical currents, is doomed to failure.
Unfortunately, that won’t stop them from going ahead and doing it.
My DIL does wonders with it she works in a rehab hospital and she has them straightened out, walking, using their hands like they haven’t in years.
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