Hello! I recently found out about this cool phenomenon: Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation "GVS", which has been experimented with ever since modern batteries were first invented. I have been reading up the topic, and I decided today to test it on myself. I made some neat homemade electrodes and, lacking a fully functioning multimeter (I just realized that the fuse has been out for a while), I made an estimate with Ohm's law as to how much resistance I should put in the circuit. I experimented using a 9v battery that outputs 8.7 volts currently, and 8/9k ohms of resistance to get a current slightly over/under 1mA.
This forum thread (http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,21780.15.html) and other articles and papers say to place the electrodes behind your ear on approximately where the "mastoid process" is shown to be in this photo (http://www.daviddarling.info/images/temporal_bone.jpg). I scraped down my skin with the rough side of a sponge to get rid of oils and I placed the electrodes on my temporal bone. The results were hardly what I was expecting. With both 8k and 9k ohms in the circuit, I was only feeling a prick that was slightly uncomfortable at worst. The current in the circuit might have been too high or too low, but this seems unlikely to me. The thread I linked to says that 1-1.5 mA is ideal. 8k ohms should have been outputting 1.1 mA, but I was not feeling a change in balance or orientation.
Does anyone have ideas about why my test was unsuccessful? Thanks!
You forgot to take into account the resistance of your skin. You were probably getting much less than 1.1 mA through the circuit. Time to fix your multimeter.
First off - standard disclaimer about electricity anywhere in the region of your head applies; that said, go hear if you want to do more research on this (and other similar topics - some of this stuff goes really far out there):
Indeed - stick to 9V and making better contact (wet skin with salt water?) rather than pushing the voltage up and up(!)
I did once, as an experiment in my youth, connect lots of old (semi-dead) batteries in series to see when it would start
to make a detectable current hand-to-hand (and measured the current). About 50V and 0.5mA if I remember right was
starting to tingle uncomfortably with wet fingers. Of course hand-to-hand is a particularly stupid thing to do as the
heart is directly in the path of the current, and once you get to a few mA things become seriously dangerous I believe.
Hello,Just activated on the forums! Anyway, I am working with an Oculus Rift,and I have been searching for potential solutions for the VR sickness problem (which is common), I happened upon this post searching for GVS and think this my be a very good solution.
Small problem, I am not very good with hardware, though I do ave an Uno so I was wondering if I could get the schematics fr what you made, and maybe ask if what code you needed, if any besides the write out to the switch.
Thanks in advance man, and I'll post if figure anything out!
Small problem, I am not very good with hardware, though I do ave an Uno so I was wondering if I could get the schematics fr what you made, and maybe ask if what code you needed, if any besides the write out to the switch.
I don't think the OP's rig was Arduino based: just a 9v battery with two wires stuck to his skin, with a resistor in series there somewhere.
