I find myself strangely tempted to hit up Ebay for one of the el-cheapo electrical-acupuncture “tens massager” (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machines; or even just a 6-volt 4xAA battery case, some alligator clips, and whatever fiddlery is required to attach the latter to some electrodes stuck on at the mastoid.
Anyone want to try to talk me into and/or out-of wasting $5 on such silliness?
I’m going to try to do this myself. It involves a battery, an inverter (to convert it to AC), and electrodes. I’ve been warned that you need gel to avoid pain. I’ll also caution that we don’t know about the effects of prolonged galvanic stimulation on humans, so if you’re doing it for more than an hour at a time, you’re in unexplored waters.
6-volt, low-amp inverters don’t seem to be the sorts of electronics that show up on Ebay. Feel free to let us know what you use for that piece of hardware. :)
Worth noting this is n=1, and he was faceblind due to brain damage, not from birth.
Okay, that seems a lot easier to stick in my model. At least, with a handwavy “like the water in your ear thing” as opposed to a “okay, I thought faceblind people were missing a structure, and somehow mucking with the balance system adds it???”
I find myself strangely tempted to hit up Ebay for one of the el-cheapo electrical-acupuncture “tens massager” (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machines; or even just a 6-volt 4xAA battery case, some alligator clips, and whatever fiddlery is required to attach the latter to some electrodes stuck on at the mastoid.
Anyone want to try to talk me into and/or out-of wasting $5 on such silliness?
I’m going to try to do this myself. It involves a battery, an inverter (to convert it to AC), and electrodes. I’ve been warned that you need gel to avoid pain. I’ll also caution that we don’t know about the effects of prolonged galvanic stimulation on humans, so if you’re doing it for more than an hour at a time, you’re in unexplored waters.
6-volt, low-amp inverters don’t seem to be the sorts of electronics that show up on Ebay. Feel free to let us know what you use for that piece of hardware. :)
$1: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1Pcs-4-X-AA-Battery-Holder-6V-DC-Power-Case-W-9V-Clip-Black-Plastic-HM-/201384028360
$1: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-Double-ended-Test-Leads-Alligator-Crocodile-Roach-Clip-Jumper-Wire-2016-/331949160689
$1.50: http://www.ebay.com/itm/45x45MM-Tens-Machine-Replacement-Electrode-Pads-Massagers-Reusable-Adhesion-New-/371515038247
$1.50: local AA batteries
The faceblindness connection seems especially strange. Do they have an explanation for it?
Paper is freely available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7259379_Improvement_of_a_face_perception_deficit_via_subsensory_galvanic_vestibular_stimulation (‘download full-text PDF’ looks to me like it’s going to ask for money, but it doesn’t)
The discussion section looks like it makes a tentative guess, but I’m not capable of summarizing it.
Worth noting this is n=1, and he was faceblind due to brain damage, not from birth.
Similar n=1 brain damage study: “Improvement of a figure copying deficit during subsensory galvanic vestibular stimulation” http://www.bu.edu/ballab/pubs/Wilkinson2009.pdf
I wonder if this is related to the “squirt cold water in your left (right?) ear” thing?
Okay, that seems a lot easier to stick in my model. At least, with a handwavy “like the water in your ear thing” as opposed to a “okay, I thought faceblind people were missing a structure, and somehow mucking with the balance system adds it???”