Zapping Improves Math Skills

Zapping the Brain Improves Math Skills
By applying electrical current to the brain, researchers can enhance a person's mathematical ability for up to six months.
THE GIST
* A mild electricalcurrent improves a person's ability to learn math skills.
* The effect lasts up to six months.
* The technique could help students learn other skills besides math as well.
It's barelyenough to light a light bulb, but passing a very mild current of electricity through the brain can turn on a metaphorical light bulb in a person's brain.
Scientists from the University of Oxford haveshown that they can improve a person's math abilities for up to six months. The research could help treat the nearly 20 percent of the population with moderate to severe dyscalculia (math disability),and could probably aid students in other subjects as well.
"I am certainly not advising people to go around giving themselves electric shocks," said Roi Cohen Kadosh, a scientist at the University ofOxford and a co-author of a new paper. "But we are extremely excited by the potential of our findings."
The UK scientists used a method known as transcranial direct current stimulation, or TDCS. Thisnon-invasive technique involves passing electricity through the skull to increase or decrease the activity of neurons, usually for less than 15 minutes.
The amount of electricity is tiny, so smallthat most patients don't even know it is happening. In fact, many scientists were initially skeptical it would have any effect at all, said Jim Stinear, Director of the Neuralplasticity Laboratory atthe Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
For this experiment the scientists directed the current into the brain's parietal lobe, which is involved in number processing. Instead of learning familiarArabic numerals, however, the scientists had the participants learn a new series of symbols that represented numbers. Then, while their brains were being stimulated, they tested the participants...