My brain was turned off by a magnet!

So I decided to post on DU!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/22/nzap22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/22/ixportal.html

Snap! As the machine fires the first magnetic pulse, my scalp feels like it is being pinched and puckered. After rotating a knob on a box of electronics, Prof John Rothwell holds a giant black key against my head once again. Crack! Now it feels like someone is tapping my forehead with a pen. From the inside. Curious.

Another twiddle. Snap, snap, snap! My arm becomes possessed. It twitches and jerks with each flick of the switch. Prof Rothwell is satisfied. He is ready to boost my brain by zapping my temporal lobe with bursts of magnetic energy.

I am in a laboratory in the Institute of Neurology in Queen Square, London, having the top of my brain "tickled", as Prof Rothwell calls it, using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), one of the trendiest tools in neuroscience.

This week, in the journal Neuron, Prof Rothwell and colleagues at University College London describe how they have improved TMS so that it can boost and fade specific parts of the brain for more than an hour. All it takes is 40 seconds of magnetic stimulation. Initial safety tests reveal no long-lasting effects. "I have had it done lots of times," says Prof Rothwell. For me, TMS was disconcerting rather than painful. Mild headache and transient light-headedness can sometimes result, though not in my case.

They were testing to find out how the brain can re-use different parts of itself if they are not needed for their primary task.

In particular, they were testing the use of the visual cortex in reading Braille. They took a volunteer, a sighted girl, and completely covered her eyes for a few weeks. During that time, she learned Braille. Because her visual cortex was not receiving ANY information from her eyes, the brain decided to use it to learn Braille. They verified it by magnet-zapping the back of her head, and that severely affected her ability to read Braille. The visual cortex's processing power was diverted to heightening the sensitivity of her fingertips.

Brain science is fascinating.

have you noticed any odd memories, smells or appetites pop up while they are doing this?