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BrainBlog

Feb 9 '13

magnelectro asked:

Hi, I was really enjoying your blog. I am exploring neurofeedback and brain-stim as well. Have you stopped brain-hacking?

Yes, I stopped.

Apr 8 '12

New things have arrived

A shipment of sponge electrodes has arrived from Amazon. This should make it possible to get some real current flow.

Also, I got 30g of aniracetam and some choline to boost it. I’ve been taking two doses per day at 750mg aniracetam and 250mg choline each time, stirred into a shot of olive oil. I think it’s making me calmer but I’m not sure. I should get a heart rate variability monitor to find out for sure.

Mar 17 '12
I tried out tDCS for the first time tonight at Hacker Dojo. The setup included a 9 volt battery, a 9 kOhm resistor and a pair of Pro-Patch reusable self-adhesive electrodes. I didn’t really notice any effects, but that may be because I was only getting at most 1 milliamp of current. About ten minutes in, a lunatic from Tracy came in and started being a nuisance. After it became clear that he wasn’t going to leave on his own, I asked him to go away and he did. Next time I’ll have to pick a location where I won’t be interrupted and can get 20 minutes of stimulation.

I tried out tDCS for the first time tonight at Hacker Dojo. The setup included a 9 volt battery, a 9 kOhm resistor and a pair of Pro-Patch reusable self-adhesive electrodes. I didn’t really notice any effects, but that may be because I was only getting at most 1 milliamp of current. About ten minutes in, a lunatic from Tracy came in and started being a nuisance. After it became clear that he wasn’t going to leave on his own, I asked him to go away and he did. Next time I’ll have to pick a location where I won’t be interrupted and can get 20 minutes of stimulation.

Mar 16 '12

First waveform appeared tonight

I finally got around the driver issues that were causing the mouse to go crazy, found the right settings on ElecGuru (set the Machine to RS232EEG), and got a credible waveform off my EEG-SMT device.

Mar 14 '12

EEG on the Arduino

The current situation with EEG not very hacker friendly. Most of the software available is proprietary and does not run on Linux or Mac. Fortunately, there is now a Kickstarter project to bring EEG to the Arduino, which should make it a lot easier to gain access to the raw data: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/86514518/diy-arduino-eeg?ref=live.

Mar 12 '12

Getting data

None of the existing software seems to do what I want. BrainBay crashes when I start it. Electric Guru wants the device to be on a serial port (COM 1, etc.) but it’s plugged in via USB. Same with BioEra. Also, BioEra insists on getting my email address and phone number just so I can use it.

I guess a reasonable solution would be to write a device driver for Linux and a simple tool to save the data from the five channels to text files.

Mar 11 '12

A brain hacker is born

I recently bought an OpenEEG device from www.olimex.com. It doesn’t come with a dead-tree manual, but you can learn how to use it from this page.

Here are some things I want to try once I get it working:

* Quantify the amount of synchronicity between different brain regions

* Correlate brain waves to different mental states and develop a data-driven vocabulary as an alternative to (or a confirmation of) the conventional Alpha, Beta, etc. names for brain wave frequencies.

* Develop objective functions to characterize various notions of brain-state optimality. For example, what are the best states for learning, problem solving, sports, conversation and sex? 

* Develop a wearable EEG device that makes it easy (even fashionable?) to record your brainwaves all day (and night) long. Correlate the output with Justin-TV style video recording.

* See how brainwaves are modified by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

Mar 11 '12