Intellectually Stimulating: a Day with Dr. Adam Green

After hearing about the ethical, legal, and social implications of EEG and TES devices yesterday, interns got the chance to try on some devices this time (not receiving stimulation, but intellectually stimulated!) and understand the research they are used for.

Dr. Adam Green, the principal investigator of the Lab for Relational Cognition at Georgetown University came to explain his work to the interns. His primary focus is exploring aspects of learning, especially creativity and creative anxiety. He uses tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) devices to improve participants’ results in creativity measurements and paradigms he has developed. His lab aims to explore cognition in order to apply findings to education, using neurofeedback technology which has versions that are more accessible to the public than other clinical tools.

The interns even got the chance to experience the tDCS technology themselves. Assisted by Dr. Green’s research associate, interns were able to try on the tDCS devices that are created by companies that claim noninvasive brain stimulation helps consumers learn faster. They had the opportunity to see what the devices discussed by Dr. Shook in his previous ethics consult actually felt like sitting on their heads, and participated in a hands-on exploration of neuro-enhancement technology. According to Heather Peach, “I learned that products like this that have these brain sensors actually exist on the market. Being introduced to this topic, I was under the impression that something to this extreme would still be tested in labs. I did try on one of the headsets and I thought it was really interesting, the one I tried on had the option to try on numerous attentive moods like creativity, focus, calmness, etc. I thought it was really cool and if I had the money to get one I definitely would”.