- [Voiceover] Techniques used in this video
may be dangerous.
Do not try at home.
- Should I turn it back on?
Yeah, it just feels like burning, kind of.
That's supposed to happen?
That's supposed to happen.
Yeah.
(beaty music)
- [Voiceover] So I really wanna electrocute my brain.
I heard about this technology, tDCS,
on a Radio Lab episode
which pretty much said I could be faster,
and think clearer, and pretty much be smarter.
So I wanna try it for myself.
All over Reddit, people are making their own,
and they're powered by just nine volt batteries
wired to homemade electrodes.
So I asked my dad, who's an electrician,
to make me one of these brain-shocking devices,
and he built me one.
So let's try it.
I'll put this one on the right side,
and this guy on the left,
and that's gonna help my learning.
It definitely feels tingly.
Do you want to electrocute your head?
- Yeah.
Feels like my head is tingly.
- [Voiceover] Uh-huh.
- And it kinda feels like it's like
pushing my head in.
- [Voiceover] Do you feel smarter?
- I don't know, man.
- Hey Dmitri.
- Yes.
- Will you be part of this science experiment?
And it's on.
Do you feel any tingling?
- No.
Yep, maybe.
Can't tell if it's in my head or not.
What have you done?
What is going on?
- [Voiceover] What had I done?
There is no way electrocuting your head
can be beneficial.
I headed out to USC to get some answers.
- [Voiceover] So I was very interested in the possibility
of using tDCS technology as a therapy
for children with movement disorders.
I work with children with cerebral palsy.
What's thought is it's basically a battery.
If you put a positive electrode on one part
of your brain and a negative electrode on the other,
the ones that are near the positive electrode
makes the cell a little bit more likely
to fire, and the one near the negative electrode
makes it a little less likely to fire.
So I'm hopeful that something like this
will be useful.
It's the holy grail of medicine.
Non-invasive, cheap, painless thing
that cures your disease without drugs.
But so far, it's not there.
- [Voiceover] So tDCS is still in the research stages,
even for professionals.
How did I know if mine was working?
I decided to do some research too,
so we rented this arcade game
which has Police Trainer,
and we're gonna compare our scores
before and after we shock our brains.
(game noises)
I had three people, including myself,
get familiar with Police Trainer,
and then do a round without tDCS.
- Wow, it's hard to tell the colors.
(game noises)
Oh, God, what?
- [Voiceover] Round one was not great,
so we strapped the device to our head,
using a hat to hold it in place.
(game noises)
- Holy shit.
Weird.
All right.
- [Voiceover] To make sure experience
was not a factor, we played one more time
without tDCS, but brain shocking
still had better results.
- [Voiceover] Feels good.
I feel good.
I wish we had darts we could throw at my face.
That way, I could just...
I mean, maybe it's just because
I'm wearing something on my head
that's just like drawing attention
to the fact that this is life.
- I don't know, it just seemed easier,
especially the one where it was
like matching the colors, like,
it seemed like I had a long time
to pause and look at the pictures
before I shot.
I don't know.
It could just be because there was a buzz
in my head, and it was feeling weird,
and all these things were happening all at once.
But I don't know,
I think it worked.
Yeah, yeah, if the Apple Watch had one of these,
I'd where it all day.
- So it could have been a placebo,
but I think it worked, at least a little bit.
I know the technology's not there yet,
but I could see a future where people
skip the coffee and they juice their brains instead.
Hey guys, do not try this at home.
The research isn't all in,
and you definitely don't wanna mess up your brain.
(buzzy sound effect)