Testing tDCS against dementia (Image: Marc Asnin/New Scientist)
LINDA BUSTEED sits nervously as two electrodes wrapped in large, wet sponges are strapped to her head. One electrode grazes the hairline above her left eye while the other sits squarely on her right eyebrow. Wires snake over her head to a small power pack fuelled by a 9-volt battery. Busteed drums her fingers on the table as she anticipates the moment when an electric current will start flowing through her brain.
It sounds like quackery, but it’s not. A growing body of evidence suggests that passing a small electric current through your head can have a profound effect on the way your brain works. Called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the technique has already been shown to boost verbal and motor skills and to improve learning and memory in healthy people – making fully-functioning brains work even better. It is also showing promise as a therapy to cure migraine and speed recovery after a stroke, and may extract more from the withering brains of people with dementia. Some researchers think the technique will eventually yield a commercial device that healthy people could use to boost their brain function at the flick of a switch.
“You could use this to boost your brainpower at the flick of a switch”
Busteed isn’t here to test commercial devices, however. The 64-year-old suffers from the degenerative brain disease frontotemporal dementia, which leads to language loss, personality changes and mood swings. There is no treatment.
Busteed is one of 20 patients in a phase II clinical trial led by Eric Wassermann, head of the brain stimulation unit…
