Subjects in the study, led by Oxford’s Roi Cohen Kadosh, were given math questions while being subjected to either real or fake electrical shocks that fluctuated in power. The study kept the shocks going for five days, during which the 25 test subjects also received mathematics lessons. While the two groups started off equally skilled, by the end of five days of training and shock therapy, the subjects who were being jolted were two to five times faster at processing their lessons, and better at retaining them, too.
The results seemed to stick, too. After six months, researchers called the subjects in for a second study in which the previously shocked participants remained about one third faster than their colleagues in the control group. Brain images taken during the study show the brains of subjects in the experimental and control groups even looked different.
via Geekosystem
Image: Roi Cohen Kadosh
