Dr. Matt Walker

and specifically something called transcranial direct current stimulation.

And I'll unpack that.

Trans meaning movement.

So if you've heard of transport, it's about moving things from one port to another.

Transatlantic, moving across the Atlantic.

So here, the start of it is moving.

You're moving something from one place to the next.

Transcranial means through your skull.

So we're moving something through your skull.

Transcranial direct current is the type of voltage or the type of electrical impulse that we're putting in.

It could be alternating current.

or it could be direct current, and early methods and those we use have been direct current.

So transcranial, direct current, and then stimulation.

We're trying to stimulate the brain, specifically the cortex.

And the way that we do this is that we apply electrode pads to your head and we insert a small amount of voltage into your brain.

Now, it's so small that you typically don't feel it, but it has a measurable impact on that electrical brain activity.

So very early on, scientists, and we weren't the first to do this by any means, there was a great paper, now a famous paper in my field, by a wonderful scientist, Jan Born in Germany.

And they took a group of subjects and they applied these electrode pads specifically to the front of the brain.

And I'll explain why we target the front of the brain with sleep electrical enhancement or the electroceutical, as it were.

They applied these electropads to two groups of participants, and then they let them go into sleep.