Originally used to help patients with brain injuries, tDCS has supposedly been found to increase cognitive performance in healthy adults.

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While the participants were doing this task, the scientists either disrupted their left prefrontal cortex with tDCS or used a sham control procedure.

WSJ: Mind & Matter: Alison Gopnik on Beating the Brain's Curbs on Innovation

They used a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS. If you pass a weak electrical current through part of the brain, it temporarily and safely disrupts neural activity.

WSJ: Mind & Matter: Alison Gopnik on Beating the Brain's Curbs on Innovation

None of those are quite like the foc.us, however, which serves up transcranial direct-current simulation (tDCS) -- a controversial form of neurosimulation that transmits current to a particular area of the brain.

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Still, the foc.us is one of a few tDCS headsets designed for the consumer market and can, the inventor Michael Oxley claims, improve your working or short-term memory when the electrodes are placed on your prefrontal cortex.

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