Yesterday, we spoke about DBS (deep brain stimulation).  Today, we’ll talk about a different kind of brain stimulation- tCDS (trans-cranial direct current stimulation).  The goal of tCDS is to develop a feeling of “effortless” concentration, associated with outstanding performance.  This feeling is called the “flow” in the vernacular.  Before you decide to “go with the flow”, you have to understand that we don’t quite have it “nailed down”, either.

We do know (thanks to Dr. Anders Ericsson, Florida State University) that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in most disciplines.  This lets the brain develop the circuitry to perform these skills automatically, without having you consider each step in the process.  And, that process is what we call the ‘flow’.  Intense concentration, yet calm demeanor, with time seemingly slowing down- that’s the concept. And, some folks are able to develop the ‘flow’ earlier in their training, perhaps due to innate natural ability.

This has been the center of the efforts of Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (then at Chicago, now Claremont Graduate University)  since the  1970’s, where he began describing this state empirically in his book, “Beyond Boredom and Anxiety”.)  He found that those joyful feelings in the flow state made further practice acceptable; in younger folks (like children), if they didn’t have that feeling of ‘flow’- in spite of their talents- they would stop developing those skills and become mediocre.

Csikszentmhalyi characterized the four essential features of ‘flow’: Absorption, autotelicity, the sweet spot, and automaticity.  Absorption is the intense immersion and focus that affords the user to lose all sense of time.  Autotelicity affords one the belief that the activity is the reward itself.  Finding the sweet spot means one feels that one is perfectly attuned to the task, so one is not bored or frustrated (being in the sweet spot).  Automaticity is that feeling that things are happening by themselves.   (To be honest, this is how I feel when I am developing new products and processes- be they medical devices or business processes.  I just never heard the concept so described.)

You should note that I said that Csikszentmihalyi described the flow empirically.  Because we have not yet found the scientific measurements to ascertain this ‘nirvana’.  Csikszentmihalyi tried to do so using EEG (electroencephalography), where he found less activity in the prefrontal context, which is that area of the brain involved in working memory and verbalization.  He conjectured that this meant the subjects were silencing their self-critical thoughts, affording automaticity to take precedence.

Gabrielle Wulf (now at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), in conjunction with Hoss and Prinz (then all at the Max Planck Institute), found that if athletes would focus their attention on an external point, one away from their body, they could augment their performance dramatically.  (This article is not universally available online; here is an abstract.)  This is in concert with the ‘flow’; skill acquisition that is greatly enhanced when conscious thought is sublimated.

Which is what tCDS is all about.  With a small power supply and transmitter, an anode (positive) is affixed to one’s temple, and the cathode (negative) is attached to one’s left arm, or both leads could be connected to one’s temple.  One feels a tingle as the 2 milliamp current is used to stimulate the ‘object recognition’ center of the brain. It supposedly makes the neurons in the region more responsive to inputs (more excitable) by depolarizing the neuron’s membranes, and lets new neural pathways form more readily when learning the new skills.  (Should you elect to pull the electrodes at an inopportune time, you could be rendered blind- for more than a few seconds…)

We don’t know if those brain reactions are true yet.  But, we do know is that our sense of time is disrupted- where we think the elapsed time to have been much shorter.  And our responses are, indeed, more automatic, with focused efforts and calmed feelings.  In other words, our performances are indeed automatic.  The other fact we do know is that this type of process is being tested by the military. To improve the performance of snipers and special forces.

While this seems to improve our performance, ranging from STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to marksmanship, it’s NOT something to be tried at home.  Oh, there are kits and underground efforts.  But, tCDS systems are normally a few thousand dollars, at least the ones with quality control involved.  Remember, you can find yourself blind, if you are not careful.

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