Explorations with an EEG device, on humans and plants

I assembled an EEG. First I bought a "modeeg" analog board and digital board from Olimex. These are based on the "ModularEEG" design from the open-source "OpenEEG" project. I put these into a case with standoffs, connectors, cables, electrodes. I bought some real electrode paste.


My intended applications were:

1. To try out EEG biofeedback

2. To explore plant electrophysiology (for instance, can microvolt feedback controlling water flow, permit plants to control their own hydration in near-realtime, and if so, what results?)

3. To do some experiments on myself (perhaps the most-ethical way to do living-subject experiments, in my opinion)

When I tried EEG biofeedback, I found that I was able to increase the amplitude of various brainwaves in various parts of my head just by putting my tactile awareness there, spacially -- by "feeling into" those areas. In some circles there is a saying "where attention goes, energy flows." Perhaps so...

So far I consider my EEG research program only about 5% complete. Next I am considering:

1. putting electrodes across multiple points in a plant (leaves, stem, roots), to look for correlations with circadian cycles and weather variables.


2. adding some analyses from newly published research

3. adding new biofeedback algorithms, perhaps using an FPGA to compute them quickly


4. building active electrodes

5. reproducing the "IQ cap" metrics whose developer claimed they correlate with IQ, determining whether they do in my case, and then measuring mine as an experimental response to various stimuli.

(Author Tom Wolfe interviewed neuroscientists for a 1996 article (here) and one of them had built an EEG device called the "IQCap" based on a description in a 1984 book. Wolfe reports: "You attached sixteen electrodes to the scalp of the person you wanted to test. You had to muss up his hair a little, but you didn't have to cut it, much less shave it. Then you had him stare at a marker on a blank wall. This particular researcher used a raspberry-redthumbtack. Then you pushed a toggle switch. In sixteen seconds the Cap's computer box gave you an accurate prediction (within one-half of a standard deviation) of what the subject would score on all eleven subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or, in the case of children, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--all from sixteen seconds' worth of brain waves.")


6. adding a wireless, perhaps Bluetooth, transceiver (right now it has an RS-232 interface with DB-9 connector; it may be easiest to replace the project's Digital Board with a modern small computer, such as the upcoming Chip project on Kickstarter, $9 with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth)


7. adding channels by replicating the analog board