8 Advancements In Brain Science Straight Out of Science Fiction (3 of 5)

5. Enhancing Concentration

Completing tasks that require a great deal of time and concentration can lead to serious fatigue. But researchers may have found a hack that allows you to maintain high levels of focus, and all it requires is for your brain to be zapped! It’s actually not as horrifying as it sounds. Participants of a study who received noninvasive prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), experienced sustained periods of alertness versus those who were administered a placebo treatment. It is hoped that one day tDCS treatments can be used to help those in a line of work that requires complete mental focus for hours at a time.

4. Faster Reaction and Recall Through Music

There’s no question that music has a significant effect on our mood. A sad song makes you feel depressed, while a cheerful pop song gives you reason to hope for better days. But research by Northumbria University found that music has a positive impact on our cognitive abilities. Participants were asked to press the spacebar whenever a green square popped up on a computer screen, ignoring other colors and shapes. The participants recorded their fastest reaction times when upbeat instrumental music played in the background. Although slow music resulted in slower reaction times, it was still faster than when they listened to no music at all. A separate study found that subjects who had suffered from memory loss as a result of brain injury were able to recall events in their life after listening to music.