DIY Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation. Who wants to go first?

The β1 comes with everything you need to built your own tDCS. No soldering, no worrying about frying your brain, no stress. A purposefully simple device, it is easy to setup and use. We are in the design an prototyping phase right now, and the final design is yet to be determined.

I'd be very willing to try this out once it has been demonstrated that there is, indeed, no need to worry about frying your brain.

I've been looking into this, and have commented about it briefly here. I think I may hold off on future experimentation until I get this kit.

The takeaway is that there definitely appears to be an effect. Getting that effect to be positive seems more difficult, however. For example, a problem with this kit is going to be getting the electrodes in the right spots- see all of those dots on that image they have? It may be that missing the correct placement by a centimeter gives you a significantly different effect, and so I'm sort of leery of doing this more without finding a training video for EEGs or something.

(Also, going off the diagram they have, we did have the current going the right direction in our setup.)

I want to hear gwern's research into the Algernon problem for it, first.

edit: Since both gwern and wedrifed thought I was asking for reassurance--I want to be reasonably confident that there isn't an as-yet unnoticed Algernon problem with this entirely new type of brain hacking before using it on myself.

Here's a company (soon) selling a DIY kit to build your own.

I'll believe it when I see it. It currently looks like a market research page scouting for interest.

I'd definitely use this if I could get it. It is far less invasive and even potentially cheaper (over a reasonable term) than the cerebrolysin injections I give myself.

I'll begin to build such a device together with a friend in two weeks earliest. We planned on it before, and I'm quite certain he's capable of building the circuit necessary for this (he has good experience with soldering, a solid understanding of the underlying physics and is curious enough to get the thing done). I'll let you know when I achieved something interesting.

Making these would be a fun activity for a meetup.

I've tried it, administered by JARRYD HORVATH, they guy who ironically authored the meta analyses showing TCDS doesn't do a whole lot or it's inconsistent. It was a weird experience

If anyone is interested, a list of tDCS clinical trials can be found here http://www.tdcscommunity.com

I've got several prototype devices for doing this. I'm having someone else sort through promising abstracts. If anyone has any experiments to try or any other questions let me know. I don't have the facilities to do proper studies of any sort, nor do I have an licensing or legal authority to conduct any studies. But I'll gladly answer things from a guy-in-his-basement perspective.

So, can I get the benefit of this stuff by getting a 9v battery, wiring it to my head and maybe adding some salt water for conduction? Or does it require a different voltage?

There doesn't seem to be too much risk. The threshold for damage is higher than the threshold for pain, at least from what I can understand.

My building of one is going slowly. I want to read more of the literature first. I'm documenting my build here.

No thanks, but I'll volunteer for the DYI transcranial magnetic stimulation if there's such a thing.

Hi,

You are being invited to participate in a research study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. Your participation is voluntary which means you can choose whether or not you want to participate.

The Laboratory of Cognition and Neural Stimulation at the University of Pennsylvania is involved in research using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In recent years this technology has increased in popularity, and evidence suggests that some individuals may be constructing their own stimulators for personal use. We are interested in examining the reasons behind this. Please answer the questions below, and email them to braintdcs@gmail.com to give us insight into why people make their own tDCS machines.

Questions

1. Where did you first learn about tDCS?
2. Have you built your own tDCS machine?
3. Where did you get the information to build the machine?
4. Why did you want to try brain stimulation?
5. How long have you been using tDCS?
6. What were your experiences with this technology?
7. Did you ever experience any side-effects?

The research team may use information about you collected from your responses. By completing the questionnaire, you are giving your consent to participate in this study. Once you email us, your responses are not considered confidential since emails do not protect confidentiality.

Thanks,

Research Specialist Laboratory of Cognition and Neural Stimulation University of Pennsylvania