Michael Weisend PHD. is a principal investigator at The Mind Research Network, MRN.org, and assistant professor of Translational Neuroscience at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Dr. Weisend and his team pioneered a method for determining optimal brain regions for tDCS stimulation using fMRI. Much of Dr. Weisend’s work is focused on cognitive enhancement in healthy subjects for the purpose of reducing the amount of time it takes to master a skill. He shared a full hour of his time and a wealth of tDCS-related information. Download the interview here (zipped mp3). Subscribe in iTunes. (Firefox users- there’s an issue with the html5 audio player. In the meantime you can download the episode or open the page in another browser).

Show Notes

The Sally Adee article I discuss. (pdf)

The Through The Wormhole episode mentioned. (YouTube)

Magnetoencephalography

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

DARWARS Ambush NK is a research program intended to accelerate the development and deployment of military training systems. (wiki) (pdf)

TDCS guided using fMRI significantly accelerates learning to identify concealed objects.

eeg electrodes + gel + wrap.

Transcranial direct current stimulation’s effect on novice versus experienced learning.

iNTIFIC Develops games and training.

pulsed oscillatory electromagnetic fields

tRNS

Fisher Wallace Stimulator.

Perils of tDCS.

F10-anodal, cathodal-opposite upper arm, actually does something.

‘Target search and identification’. What could it be good for the average person?

Dear reader, help me find a way to build a self-experiment that will test my results.

Recalling distant memories?

Anecdotes…

Girl who heard melodies.

Guy who solved a problem he’d been working on.

Age-related memory decline… ‘I can find words now…’

-More verbally fluent as a result of tDCS

-Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (approx F5-anode, cathode opposite upper arm)

“People do not like it.” Cathodal stimulation of F10

Accelerating non-declarative skill learning.

-Cathode-L-DLPFC, Anode-M1

Grants outstanding to test more of this.

Recruiting the correct brain network to deal with the stimuli at hand for the purpose of successful task completion.

Competing brain networks!

Neural modulation fastest growing area of medicine.

Ethics of tDCS.

Lisa Marshall

Potential for-profit applications?

Conferences: Human Brain Mapping, Seattle June 16-20

Society for Neuroscience San Diego Nov 9-13