“The current could not be felt, and had no measurable effect on other brain functions. As it was turned on, the volunteers tried to learn a puzzle which involved substituting numbers for symbols. Those given the current from right to left across the parietal lobe did significantly better when given, compared to those who were given no electrical stimulation. The direction of the current was important — those given stimulation running in the opposite direction, left to right, did markedly worse at these puzzles than those given no current, with their ability matching that of an average six-year-old. The effects were not short-lived, either. When the volunteers whose performance improved was re-tested six months later, the benefits appear to have persisted. There was no wider effect on general maths ability in either group, just on the ability to complete the puzzles learned as the current was applied.”Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
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Over volt your head

Humans don’t come with a warranty to void, but you still might want to be careful putting what you learn from this Slashdot article to use. The application of current to specific areas of the brain has been proven to improve or degrade mathematical skills, apparently at least semi-permanently. Researchers saw that the direction of the current was very important and heading left to right it underclocked math skills and reduced performance. It isn’t a general overclock, more like a stream processor boost leaving the core clocks unaffected.