Stimulating brain with electricity aids learning speed
To observe this effect, the team has devised an experiment, whereby volunteers must memorise a sequence of buttons to press "like playing a tune on a piano".
While they are doing this, they are fitted with a "trans-cranial current stimulation" device, where two rubber electrodes are places in a specific position on the head.
A very small, one milliamp current is passed between the electrodes in an arc through the brain and, depending on the direction of that current, will either increase or decrease the activity of that part of the brain.
Professor Johansen-Berg explained that "an increase in activity of the brain cells makes them more susceptible to the kinds of changes that occur during learning".
Yeah baby, I'm now fluent in Spanish! Wohooooooooo
8 Answers
Since I read this report, I've been chewing on rechargeable batteries. It's great for the mind, but hard on the teeth.
Fine print: This is just a joke. Do not chew or swallow batteries of any size, even if they have Spanish writing on them.
So... if I rub my bare feet on the carpet and touch my son while he is studying, will his grades improve? 
I went the "hole hog" and plugged myself into the mains - .......
Now I'm plugged into a life-support machine and my Spanish has got worse.
I'm trying cocaine next.
Ewwww...not sure if I want to learn faster if I have to have a brain implant!
Like Pesta: I'd prefer drugs.
I don't know... after my most recent electro-shock therapy session my Spanish has been horrible!
They also done tests on the brain before that showed that by adding electricity to the right part of the brain they could completely disrupt a persons ability to make moral judgments. they couldn't predict or control the results but they could reliably stop someone from realizing that a certain act was wrong.
Really really scary if you think about it.
So.. no thanks.. nothing in my brain even if it would make me fluent in every language.
I can see that your thread is a kind of joke.
Seriously speaking, I would have some serious doubts concerning the safety and efficacy of using electricity to improve the brain's effectiveness in learning especially it's speed of learning new information. I shudder thinking about the side effects! It sounds like something out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein!
In the past, some victorian scientists probably did untold damage to people in the uncertain hope of trying to cure people with supposed mental health problems, many of them women who had been tragically condemned to live out the rest of their lives in mental institutions for no other reason than becoming pregnant. They had been shamefully treated by their family members because of the scandel associated with pregnancy ''out of wedlock'' (outside of marriage)
Scientists, (Many of whom would be doctors), would conduct experiments on these poor unfortunate beings against their will or with the inmates/patients having little real understanding of what they were consenting to. It could be argued that scientists knew little about the development of the brain in those days. With the law on human rights as it is today the scientits could find themselves subject to expensive litigation (ie: law suits) if they acted in a a similar manner today.
These days ECT (Electro Convulsive therapy) is used to treat people with epilepsy.
Stadt:
And I had only considered electroshock, to zap myself whenever I made a mistake. I notice you don't tell us where to put the electrodes ("a specific position").
Well, if you read the article, it's mentioned there where to put the electrodes. On the other hand, if you already have kids, you can go for that 'specific spot'. jejejejejeje
