Want to improve your mathematical abilities? Get electrically shocked: It’s called Transcranial Electrical Stimulation

Want to improve your mathematical abilities? Get electrically shocked: It’s called transcranial electrical stimulation 

ScientificAmerican

Transcranial electrical stimulation, or tES, is another brain-stimulation technique. However, this one is Non-Invasive.

Brain-stimulation techniques have become more widely known. For example: DBS, Deep Brain Stimulation—electrodes implanted into brain and stimulating brain cells, neurons—potentially treated Parkinson’s disease and Tourette syndrome.

However, with tES, may improve your arithmetic skills.

Background:

Wall Street Journal: “Up to 6 percent of the population is estimated to have a math-learning disability called developmental dyscalculia, similar to dyslexia but with numerals instead of letters.

He found that he could temporarily turn off regions of the brain known to be important for cognitive skills. When the parietal lobe of the brain was stimulated using that technique, he found that the basic arithmetic skills of doctoral students who were normally very good with numbers were reduced to a level similar to those with developmental dyscalculia.

That led to his next inquiry: If current could turn off regions of the brain making people temporarily math-challenged, could a different type of stimulation improve math performance? Cognitive training helps to some extent in some individuals with math difficulties. Dr. Cohen Kadosh wondered if such learning could be improved if the brain was stimulated at the same time.”

Results: If stimulation stopped those who were stimulated maintain higher performance level up to a year, compared to those who were not.