The next stage of neuroenhancement? Transcranial direct current stimulation
By Elisabeth Hildt, PhD Dr. Elisabeth Hildt is a Senior Researcher, Reader, and Head of the Research Group on Neuroethics/Neurophilosophy at the University of Mainz Department of Philosophy. She is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board. Recently, non-medical uses of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) which aim at enhancing brain function in healthy individuals have raised public attention (Cohen Kadosh et al. 2012; Fitz & Reiner 2013; Levasseur-Moreau et al. 2013).There are companies selling tDCS devices, and one such company is foc.us , which offers a headset for $249.00 and promotes this headset as an advantage for gaming. With slogans such as: “Use the force: Let the force of electricity excite your neurons into firing faster” or “Stronger, faster, quicker: Excite your prefrontal cortex and get the edge in online gaming”, the headset is portrayed to be a cool and trendy game add-on. However, in first assessments, the benefit of the headset for gami