Electrical boost to mental arithmetic powers

A weak electrical signal can boost people's powers of mental arithmetic over a period of months, suggests a small scale study at the University of Oxford. The technique involves placing electrodes on the scalp of the head and applying random electrical noise to stimulate parts of the brain and encourage nerve cells to fire. In this case the electrodes were placed on the head to target regions of the brain known to be involved in doing maths. Dr Roi Cohen Kadosh of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, who led the research, says the brain stimulation technique called transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS) is painless, non-invasive and relatively cheap. The group asked 51 Oxford students to perform two arithmetic tasks over a five-day period that tested their ability to perform calculations in their head and learn arithmetic facts by heart. 25 participants took part in the main experiment and 26 in a control experiment. The study was designed to test whether TRNS applied while performing the mental arithmetic tests each day had an effect.