About tDCS

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive brain stimulation technique that utilizes low amplitude direct currents applied via scalp electrodes to inject currents in the brain and thus modulates the level of excitability. DC stimulation has been used in various forms since the inception of modern electrophysiology at the beginning of nineteenth century. There has been a recent upsurge in interest in tDCS as a tool for neuroscience research, and as a modality for the assessment and treatment of various neuropsychiatric disorders. tDCS has the distinct advantages of being inexpensive, easy to administer, noninvasive and painless. Recent studies support a therapeutic potential of tDCS in depression, Parkinsonism, stroke recovery, and chronic neuropathic pain.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS is a neurophysiological technique that allows the induction of a current in the brain using a magnetic field to pass the scalp and the skull safely and painlessly. In TMS, a current passes through a coil of copper wire that is encased in plastic and held over the subject’s head. This coil resembles a paddle or a large spoon and is held in place either by the investigator or by a mechanical fixation device similar to a microphone pole. As the current passes through the coil it generates a magnetic field that can penetrate the subject’s scalp and skull, and in turn induce a current in the subject’s brain. TMS is used in clinical neurophysiology to study the nerve fibers that carry the information about movements from the brain cortex to the spinal cord and the muscles.

Technical developments in the devices used for TMS made it possible in the late 1980s to apply TMS in trains of multiple stimuli per second. This form of TMS is called repetitive TMS or rTMS. Repetitive TMS can be used to study how the brain organizes different functions such as language, memory, vision, or attention. In addition, rTMS seems capable of changing the activity in a brain area, even beyond the duration of the rTMS application itself. In other words, it seems possible to make a given brain area work more or less for a period of minutes, or even weeks when rTMS is applied repeatedly several days in a row. This has opened up the possibility of using rTMS for therapy of some illnesses in neurology, rehabilitation, and psychiatry. It is important that before agreeing to participate in a TMS study, all the questions of potential subjects or patients be answered.

Alvaro Pascual-Leone. Catedratico de Neurologia en Harvard

he treatment is called “transcranial magnetic stimulation” and essentially involves placing a powerful electromagnet on a person’s scalp. The electromagnet alters brain activity by inducing an electromagnetic current in the underlying cortical neurons. Researchers aren’t sure why that would have a therapeutic effect. Pilot studies by a number of researchers at McLean and elsewhere have indicated that patients treated with TMS reported improvement in major depression, mania, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease and obsessive compulsive disorder. The authors of a recent report that reviewed the research — Michael Henry, Alvaro Pascual-Leone and Jonathan Cole — concluded that TMS “appears to be a promising potential tool” but said that more studies need to be performed to provide convincing evidence of the tehcnique’s efficacy and safety.

Ysmael Alvarez-Rodrígueza, Luis Rivasb, Carlos Riusa and Ysidro Valladaresa

aDepartment of Biology and Biochemistry of Cancer*, Instituto Nacional de Oncología, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain

bResearch Department, Centro Especial “Ramón y Cajal”, Carretera de Colmenar Km. 9.1, 28034 Madrid, Spain

Received 19 April 1985;
revised 13 September 1985;
accepted 3 October 1985.
Available online 17 March 2004.

Abstract

Filming of cultured HeLa cells using time-lapse cinevideomicrography techniques, with exposure to an extremely low frequency electromagnetic field allowed the direct observation of a localized cellular destruction process caused by a white light-electromagnetic field interaction. This phenomenon was not observed with normal human fibroblasts.

A huge list of people who work on BioArt and their projects

Project list

link

What can an artistic approach bring to issues raised by the advances in genetic technology?

This is an interesting question on a broader scale and is actually a critical point in a current online symposium [Virtual Symposium On Visual Culture and Bioscience]. Here, Suzanne Anker prompts the notion that the biosciences may be considered to be experiencing a “golden age,�? the arts on the other hand, struggle not with public consumption, but with a more profound challenge to intrinsic identity and history. However, a few examples of what has been raised might be in place, such as Tissue Culture & Art Project, showing the “failure�? of the technology (tissue engineering) by playing with utopian concepts by reflecting on technological zeitgeists. Joe Davis, a research fellow at MIT, takes a different route by attempting to use biotechnologies to open spaces between different scales, one such example is his audio microscope another is his paramecium fishing contraption. Artistic approaches can serve to contemplate how the media informs the public on matters of technology, there are also practices that take place in the labs that are being reflected upon by artists and contextualization on what is being produced by labs in broader cultural terms. It is clear to us that organisms produced routinely in labs, methodologies and ideas are far more radical than many of the ideas from the surrealist movement and these practices radically transforms our culture.

What are you working on these days?

Current projects looks at how our relationship with nature changes through the use of living material as interactive sensors in which the objective involves producing plants with biosensors. It places itself within the artistic discourses surrounding plants perceptual response to mechanical stimuli and explores areas of human-plant interaction and our changed perception though such interaction. It springs out of protocols in producing plants with biosensors and takes into account the narratives that emerge. This research is also part of Laura’s PhD at UCL.

Binary Jam – Liverpool

Daphnia – contained in droplet on light sensors.

The hammer head shark has to be the best looking of the sharks – I have only seen them on the “Blue planet” series – I was intrigued at the massive shoals where they seem to perform this odd twitch where the body flexes almost like a spasm – i was wandering if this has anything to do with generating a pulse of electricity that other sharks can detect? as thses sharks are not electrically active – but can only detect the electrical signals of muscle activity – such as small creatures under the sand….

“The ampullae of Lorenzini give the shark electrosense. The ampullae consist of small clusters of electrically sensitive receptor cells positioned under the skin in the shark’s head. These cells are connected to pores on the skin’s surface via small jelly-filled tubes. Scientists still don’t yet understand everything about these ampullary organs, but they do know the sensors let sharks “see” the weak electrical fields generated by living organisms. The range of electrosense seems to be fairly limited — a few feet in front of the shark’s nose — but this is enough to seek out fish and other prey hiding on the ocean floor.”

http://science.howstuffworks.com/shark2.htm

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