Saturday, May 18, 2013

Subtract and multiply teach shock - BBC

At six months to improve a person’s ability to arithmetic possible effects on brain electrical microcurrent random amplitude. This technique can be useful to restore people after stroke.

group of British psychologists from the University of Oxford under the direction of Roy Cohen Kadosh published in the journal Current Biology paper , which states that the impact on the brain pulses of electric current can significantly improve the mathematical ability of a person, that such an improvement is long-term nature and persists even after six months.

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Researchers used a technique called “transcranial stimulation of random noise” (TSSSH), in which the electrodes on the skull served electric mikropotentsial changing its amplitude random. The electrodes were superimposed on the frontal portion, where the prefrontal cortex of Volunteers: this is an area of ??the brain, which, in particular, is responsible for carrying out arithmetic calculations.

The experiment involved 25 people with a similar ability to perform mathematical calculations. Of these, 13 were in the control group: they, too, were applied electrodes on the head, and simulated current stimulation, although no electricity is not supplied to the electrodes.

After five consecutive sessions TSSSH, which lasted for forty minutes, volunteers from the main group began to perform arithmetic calculations to two times faster and twice as fast to remember numerical information.

To understand what is happening in those areas of the brain that have been processed by random electrical noise, the researchers used the method of short-wave infrared spectroscopy, which measures the concentration of oxygen in them. It was found that such areas began to consume more oxygen and nutrients, that is, neuronal activity in areas increased.

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But the most important result, according to the researchers, is the long-term nature of the changes. When six months after the experiment, they again checked the arithmetic abilities of former volunteers, it turned out that the participants in the core group made mathematical calculations is 28% faster than the control subjects.

However, after six months, scientists have been able to find only 12 of the 25 people in 6 people in each group, so the statement of the long-term effect was perceived by their colleagues with a big grain of salt.

Six people – is, in their opinion, is too small to make such a serious and far-reaching conclusions.

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Yet Cohen Kadosh said that it opened a great future. “Five to seven percent of the world’s population – he says – to one degree or another suffers dyscalculia, that is, the inability to study arithmetic. Moreover, almost 20% of school-age children marked problems with numbers, and all of them can help. ” He hopes to mass adoption of their methods and already sees the future of the school math classes, where each desk is equipped with special helmets that help students to “split” math puzzles.

This is cheap and non-invasive procedure, in his opinion, could be used in the rehabilitation of patients who have experienced stroke.

Moreover, according to Cohen Kadosh, it can help even just for those who want to improve their mental abilities.

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