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If
you want to fight depression or boost creativity, all you need is brain
stimulation treatment, according to the first results of a placebo-controlled
study conducted in North Carolina.
Scientists
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill proved that normal treatment
of psychiatric diseases, involving alteration of electrical activity in the
brain, can measurably boost creativity. The results were published in the
journal Cortex under the title “Functional role of frontal alpha
oscillations in creativity”.
RT.com reports:
Twenty
healthy individuals, between the ages of 19 and 30, participated in the study,
undergoing a low dose of electric currents (a safe and non-invasive frequency
of 8 to 12 hertz cycles per second) the first time for five minutes, and then
for thirty. Electrodes attached to their scalps showed prominent rhythmic EEG
patterns.
The
results, in a “common, well-validated” test of
creative thinking, improved by on average 7.4 percent, during the second period
of treatment.
“That’s a pretty big difference
when it comes to creativity,” said senior author
Flavio Frohlich in the press release.
“Several participants showed
incredible improvements in creativity. It was a very clear effect.”
To
test the accuracy of the research, a second experiment was held – this time,
with 40 Hertz of electrical current. This involves gamma frequencies typically
associated with conscious perception of senses.
“Using 40 Hertz, we saw no effect
on creativity,” Frohlich said. “The
effect we saw was specific to the 10-hertz alpha oscillations. There’s no
statistical trickery. You just have to look at each participant’s test to see
these effects.”
According
to previous research, highly creative people demonstrate alpha activity, which
is characteristic of a restful waking state of mind, such as in daydreaming.
That is why alpha waves in the brain, discovered in 1929, may be essential for
the creative process.
“This study is a
proof-of-concept. We’ve provided the first evidence that specifically enhancing
alpha oscillations is a causal trigger of a specific and complex behavior – in
this case, creativity,” Frohlich said.
“But our goal is to use this approach to help
people with neurological and psychiatric illnesses. For instance, there is
strong evidence that people with depression have impaired alpha oscillations.
If we could enhance these brain activity patterns, then we could potentially
help many people,” Frohlich added.
So,
the team has started clinical trials to examine major depressive and
premenstrual disorders. They believe that people suffering from such disorders
could also benefit from alpha wave brain stimulation.
“If people with depression are
stuck in a thought pattern and fail to appropriately engage with reality, then
we think it’s possible that enhancing alpha oscillations could be a meaningful,
noninvasive, and inexpensive treatment for them – similar to how it enhanced
creativity in healthy participants,” Frohlich said.
However, stimulating alpha
waves in the brain may not necessarily mean resorting to electric shock
therapy. Meditation is an easier way to increase alpha activity, according to a
2010 Norwegian study.
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