BrainBlog

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

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 22:42:53 -0500

Yes, I stopped.

New things have arrived

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:12:23 -0400

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.

I tried out tDCS for the first time tonight at Hacker Dojo. The...

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 04:08:01 -0400

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.

First waveform appeared tonight

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 01:22:12 -0400

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.

EEG on the Arduino

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:56:32 -0400

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.

Getting data

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:14:08 -0400

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.

A brain hacker is born

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:51:00 -0400

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).

Photo

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:42:33 -0400