US Air Force experiments create 'supersoldiers' with enhanced mental skills by boosting brains with electric shocks

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Military scientists in the US have revealed a series of experiments designs to create 'supersoldiers' with enhanced mental capabilities.

The successful tests used electrical brain stimulators to enhance the mental skills of soldiers.

It is hoped the research could lead to treatments for drone operators, air crews and others in demanding roles.

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The successful tests at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio used electrical brain stimulators to enhance the mental skills of soldiers. It is hoped the research could lead to treatments for drone operators, air crews and others in demanding roles.

'Within the Air Force, various operations such as remotely piloted and manned aircraft operations require a human operator to monitor and respond to multiple events simultaneously over a long period of time,' researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio wrote in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

'With the monotonous nature of these tasks, the operator's performance may decline shortly after their work shift commences.'

Brain stimulation kits use five electrodes to send weak electric currents through the skull and into specific parts of the cortex.

The team used a test developed by Nasa to assess subject, asking them to keep a crosshair inside a moving circle on a computer screen, while constantly monitoring and responding to three other tasks on the screen.

The study consisted of 20 participants from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (16 male and 4 female) with an average age of 31.1. 

Half of the volunteers had a constant two milliamp current beamed into the brain for the 36-minute-long test, and the other half formed a control group who only received 30 seconds of stimulation at the start of the test.

Researchers were shocked to find those who had the treatment began  to perform better than the control group just four minutes into the test.  

'The findings provided new evidence that tDCS has the ability to augment and enhance multitasking capability in a human operator, the team wrote.

'Future research should be conducted to determine the longevity of the enhancement of transcranial direct current stimulation on multitasking performance, which has yet to be accomplished.' 

While electrical brain stimulation appears to have no harmful side effects, some experts say its long-term safety is unknown.

Researchers say drone operators are among those who could benefit from the treatment

'We don't know how the stimulation of one brain region affects the surrounding, unstimulated regions," Roy Hamilton, MD, MS, an assistant professor of Neurology and director of the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation at University of Pennsylvania said. 

'Stimulating one region could improve one's ability to perform one task but hurt the ability to perform another.'

In addition, what a person is doing during tDCS - reading a book, watching TV, sleeping - can change its effects, researchers say.

Which activity is best to achieve a certain change in brain function is not yet known.

CONCERNS OVER DIY BRAIN STIMULATION

It is not yet known whether the electrical currents, when applied to the scalp, reach further than the parts of the brain being targeted.

If the currents do reach further they may alter brain functions that did not need to be changed.  

'We don't know how the stimulation of one brain region affects the surrounding, unstimulated regions," Roy Hamilton, MD, MS, an assistant professor of Neurology and director of the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation at University of Pennsylvania said. 

'Stimulating one region could improve one's ability to perform one task but hurt the ability to perform another.'

In addition, what a person is doing during tDCS - reading a book, watching TV, sleeping - can change its effects. 

Which activity is best to achieve a certain change in brain function is not yet known.

DIY brain stimulation kits like the one above, which are aimed at boosting children's performance at school, are also being sold online despite scientists warnings that they may not be safe. 

Professionals have not performed tDCS at the frequency levels some home users experiment with, such as stimulating daily for months or longer.  

Small changes in the devices settings, including the current amplitude, length of stimulation and placement of electrodes can have unexpected effects, they added.

Finally, the group warns that the effects of tDCS vary across different people.

Up to 30 per cent of experimental subjects respond with radically different changes in brain activity to the majority. 

Factors such as gender, handedness, hormones, medication, etc. could impact and potentially reverse a given tDCS effect.  

Neil Levy, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, told The Guardian that compared with prescription drugs, electrical brain stimulation could actually be a safer way to boost the performance of those in the armed forces. 

'I have more serious worries about the extent to which participants can give informed consent, and whether they can opt out once it is approved for use,' he said. 

'Even for those jobs where attention is absolutely critical, you want to be very careful about making it compulsory, or there being a strong social pressure to use it, before we are really sure about its long-term safety.'