Since underlying all of these processes are the same changes expression rates of relevant peptides/proteins, we should be able to use the same stimulation techniques to modify non-brain areas.
For example, a body builder should be able to use an ultrasound or tDCS style rig over a specific muscle group to enhance exercise performance and recovery of the target group. Or imagine a “runners suit” tuned to speed up lactate clearance, or a “belly suit” tuned to juice the ATPase pump for weight loss. Carrying that particular conceit a bit further, conditions like “chronic fatigue syndrome” or the symptomatic parts of multiple sclerosis may be resolved by applying more system wide stimulation.
Reading The Song of the Cell reinforced a couple of concepts, that a) metabolism is a cascade of interactions, and those cascades have upstream and downstream effects which extend far beyond simply targeting a specific region in the brain and b) that every cell in our body starts off the same, and underneath it run off the exact same code, the only difference is in specialization mechanics.
What if, instead of limiting our focus to the “brain”, we could expand addressing metabolic issues by recruiting the entire body using something like a wetsuit which could apply regional anodal stimulation or whole body stimulation?
Edit: Expanding this a bit more, we already somewhat do this type of stimulation with TENS devices and pacemakers, imagine treating gastro issues with non-invasive stimulation, or even as a mechanic to speed healing and repair? Is it possible that the biggest issue with “brain” focused work is that it’s too limited in scope?
I’m wondering if the reason my tDCS montage is more effective than baseline is because it stimulates a lot closer to the central pattern generators, imparting a larger system wide effect?
Whole body vibration, an alternative for exercise to improve recovery from surgery? – Somewhere in my brain I’m recalling an exploration of this topic and thought about it positively, I’m recalling the idea of building a speaker into a chair or bed frame for the purpose of instituting something like this. Will need to run though old posts.
Chronic whole body vibration ameliorates hippocampal neuroinflammation, anxiety-like behavior, memory functions and motor performance in aged male rats dose dependently – While more energy intensive, using vibration stimulation to target certain areas might have a much higher tolerability than electrical stimulation, and maybe higher regional specificity if we can lens the speakers.
Whole Body Vibration: A Valid Alternative Strategy to Exercise? – So my brain went instantly to those 50’s vibration belt machines (which seemed like a bad idea), however the current iteration of this seems to platforms that look like a Wii Fit thing. Moving back to the wetsuit conceit (not sure why I like this idea so much) we can right hand rule to flow of blood like the original machines without being quite so jarring, support multi-positional settings, and do it much more passively. Thinking about this more in the context of nervous system performance than weight loss, but maybe they are the same thing anyway?
Effects of whole body vibration with exercise therapy versus exercise therapy alone on flexibility, vertical jump height, agility and pain in athletes with patellofemoral pain: a randomized clinical trial – This found only increased flexibility, which I’m guessing means that the “without WBV” group wasn’t hitting optimal stretching. There’s still a metabolic cap, so rather than reading this as WBV only helps with flexibility, it should be read as “a great exercise program is capable of hitting the metabolic cap just as easily”. Would have been more interesting to see the exercise performed at different intensities.
Whole Body Vibration Improves Brain and Musculoskeletal Health by Modulating the Expression of Tissue-Specific Markers: FNDC5 as a Key Regulator of Vibration Adaptations – So all vertebrate cells have a native mechano-sensory mechanism to detect changes in pressure (this is how “hearing” and part of “touch” work), is this the peptide that encodes those changes?
Whole-body vibration provides additional benefits to patients with patellofemoral pain: A protocol for systematic review and meta analysis of randomized controlled trials – Including this for access to the meta-reviewed articles and as an example of horrible abuse of statistics. When we confuse p values for effect, we’ve lost our way.
Whole-body vibration training and bone health in postmenopausal women – Hrm.
Argh, I wish I could clone myself… I think this is interesting enough to think about building out a prototype?