Brain Devices and the Marvel

Abstract

In the 19th century Sir W. Thomson—widely known as ‘Lord Kelvin’ and famous for his definition of the absolute zero temperature—called it a marvel that a subject whose brain was stimulated with an enormous electro-magnet perceived nothing. Today, however, such a result is one of the main frustrations of brain-stimulating scientists and practitioners. Although non-invasive brain devices are increasingly used in and outside of academic settings, expert practitioners have problems attaining scientific credibility for the therapeutic claims about their devices, and hence in getting them approved by medical agencies like the American Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency. In spite of the problems with scientific credibility and approval, these devices are easily accessible on the Internet or in brain clinics.

Lord Lindsay got an enormous electro-magnet made, so large that the head of any person, wishing to try the experiment, could get well between the poles, in a region of excessively powerful magnetic force. What was the result of the experiment? If I were to say nothing! I would do it scant justice. The result was marvellous, and the marvel is that nothing was perceived. Your head, in a space through which a piece of copper falls as if through mud, perceives nothing. (Thomson, 1889 , p. 261)