enhanced brain function

Allan Snyder work on enhanced brain function

In the 1990′s Professor Allan Snyder at the Centre of the Mind in Australia began conducting research involving temporarily shutting down the left temporal lobe of the brain using transcranial magnetic stimulation.  During the experiments enhanced artistic and mathematical ability and improved memory emerge.

The skills that emerged in Allan Snyder’s experiments mirror those of autistic savants and also occur in some people whose left hemisphere has been damaged.

In Snyder’s words:  ”You could call this a creativity-amplifying machine. It’s a way of altering our states of mind without taking drugs like mescaline. You can make people see the raw data of the world as it is. As it is actually represented in the unconscious mind of all of us.”  A number of Allan Snyder’s  subjects have reported perceptual changes too – feelings of euphoria and bliss more normally associated with ‘peak experiences’ and meditation.

Links:

Savant-like numerosity skills revealed in normal people by magnetic pulses:  Allan Snyder, Homayoun Bahramali, Tobias Hawker, D John, May 2006 Mitchell

http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p5539

Savant for a Day   Lawrence Osborne
New your times Magazine  June 22 2003

http://www.wireheading.com/brainstim/savant.html

1 comment:

  1. Interesting - I have been hearing a lot about TES lately for enhancing brain function!

    ReplyDelete