rTMS can give people religious experiences.
Maybe a church will start using it.
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Source: Public Library of Science Date Posted: 2005-10-19 Web
Address:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051019003056.htm

STIMULATING THE BRAIN MAKES THE FINGERS MORE SENSITIVE

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has emerged as an
intriguing technique for exploring brain function, and a
promising, though still unproven, form of therapy. This week, in the
open-access journal PLoS Biology, Hubert Dinse and colleagues
show that a short course of rTMS can increase finger sensitivity for up to
two hours after treatment ends, and that this change
corresponds to an increase in the size of the brain map representing the
finger.

rTMS is applied with an electromagnetic coil in the shape of a
figure-eight, placed on the scalp directly over the targeted portion
of the brain. Short bursts of a strong magnetic pulse stimulate electrical
currents within. Sensory input from each region of the
body is represented on the surface of the brain, and the location of any
region--in this case, the right index finger--can be mapped
to allow precise targeting of the rTMS. The authors adjusted the strength
of the magnetic field to just below that which triggered a
sensory response in the finger, and then applied intermittent pulses of
stimulation over the course of about ten minutes.

They tested the sensitivity of the index finger by determining how far
apart two simultaneously applied pinpricks needed to be for
the subject to distinguish them as separate stimuli. rTMS increased this
two-point discrimination by about 15% immediately after
stimulation, an effect that gradually diminished but still remained
significant over the course of the next two hours. The effect
was fairly specific for the right index finger: there was no effect on the
left index finger, which is represented in the opposite
hemisphere, and only a small effect on the right ring finger, which is
represented several millimeters away from the index finger in
the same hemisphere. When stimulation was applied over the area
representing the lower leg, the index finger did not become more
sensitive.

The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see how
the brain changed in response to the stimulation. They
found that the region representing the index finger got larger, and that
the degree of increase in any one subject corresponded to
the degree of increased sensitivity in that same subject. As the sensory
effect faded, so too did the fMRI changes. Thus, the cortex
itself undergoes changes as a result of rTMS.

--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcneill@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill

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Phrases of the week :
"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man."
--Henry David Thoreau
"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is going beyond them
into the impossible"
--Arthur C. Clarke
"A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original
dimensions"
--Oliver Wendel lHolmes
"You laugh at me because I am different, I laugh at you because you are
all the same"
--unknown
"Do not mistake activity for accomplishment"
--unknown
:-))))Snort!)
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