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the time they're cooling their heels on chairlifts. A technology that
could speed up an athlete's ability to learn, maximizing the impact
of those precious downhill runs, interested him greatly.
Taylor set out to determine whether the Halo worked as advertised
and could be a useful training tool. So in late 2015, he began his own
research trial with a group of ski jumpers in the team gym. While receiving either real or sham stimulation, the athletes practiced launching
themselves upward from a slippery board that rested on rollers. "I can
barely stand on this thing," Taylor says. "But an elite athlete can stand
on it and then jump." A force plate beneath the board measured the
power of the skiers' jumps as they learned this skill over the course
of three weeks. The results: The sham group improved by 18 percent,
while the real stimulation group improved by 31 percent.
The jumpers all had instant feedback on each attempt, helping them
continually fine-tune how they controlled their muscles. With the
Halo's neural stimulation reinforcing those control patterns, Taylor
says, the skiers sped up their normal learning process. He was sold.
The key to making today's extraordinary athletes even better doesn't
lie in upgrading their physiques, Taylor says, but rather in upgrading their brains. "We're excited, and we think it may provide us with
a competitive advantage leading into the 2018 Olympics," he says.
But such initial successes raise a question: Does brain hacking
constitute brain doping? Taylor certainly doesn't think so. He says
any performance booster that doesn't endanger the athlete's health
and hasn't been banned by the authorities is fair game. "It's my job
to push the boundaries," he declares.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) compiles the list of
performance-enhancing substances and treatments forbidden by
the International Olympic Committee. Olivier Rabin, WADA's science director, says his team is "very actively monitoring" brainstimulation technologies, and recently discussed whether tDCS and
similar techniques warranted inclusion on the prohibited list. Their
verdict: It's not yet time to make that decision. "At the moment, our
experts consider that there is a lack of objective information about
these technologies," he says.
First, Rabin says, he'll need to see scientific proof that tDCS does
enhance athletic performance. And he's not holding his breath. In
his 14 years on the job, he's seen plenty of hyped technologies that
don't pan out, he says. But if tDCS's benefits are verified, WADA will
judge the technology on two other criteria: whether it risks the health
of the athlete, and whether it violates "the spirit of sport." A positive
finding in either category is grounds for a ban.
Both of these criteria pose knotty problems. Thousands of clinical
trials have proven tDCS safe in the short term-the worst side effects
have been skin irritation under the electrodes and
the occasional headache. But the technology is so
Post your
new that long-term safety studies simply haven't been
comments
done yet. As for the other criterion, good luck getat http://
ting a clear definition of "the spirit of sport." WADA's
spectrum.
ieee.org/
official World Anti-Doping Code defines the term
halo0916
with a long list of principles meant to sum up "the
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buffed-uP bicePs: When the author used a bicep-curl
machine without neural stimulation [above, in blue], her force
output declined due to normal fatigue over three sets of bicep
curls. Four days later, with stimulation [above, in red], her
force output increased, suggesting that the Halo Sport was
boosting her performance. Measurements are in newtons.

essence of Olympism, the pursuit of human excellence through the dedicated perfection of each person's natural talents." If, in the end, the authorities
decide tDCS should be banned, they'll still have a
conundrum: There's no way to test for it.
While the authorities dither, Halo will do its best
to slip into the mainstream. And athletes are just
the first customers targeted by this ambitious company. In South Carolina, a neurologist is currently
testing the Halo with stroke patients to see if stimulating the motor cortex speeds up rehab. Chao
envisions a whole range of Halo products offering consumers different kinds of mental boosts.
"What if you want to learn Chinese and we stimulate the language center?" he says. "What if we
stimulate the memory center and pair that with
brain-training games?"
If sports heroes embrace a technology that makes
them slightly better versions of themselves, people
watching from the stands may well become eager
to optimize themselves too. In this new society of
swifter, stronger, smarter human beings, I'll be
the old-fashioned person wandering around with
a weirdly thick head. n

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum September, 2016