Biohacking is the practice of engaging biology with the hacker ethic.[1] Biohacking encompasses a wide spectrum of practices and movements ranging from Grinders who design and install DIY body-enhancements such as magnetic implants to DIY biologists who conduct at-home gene sequencing.[2][3][4][5] Biohacking emerged in a growing trend of non-institutional science and technology development.[1][6][7] Many biohacking activists, or biohackers, identify with the biopunk movement as well as transhumanism and techno-progressivism.[2][8][9]
"Biohacking" can also refer to managing one's own biology using a combination of medical, nutritional and electronic techniques. This may include the use of nootropics and/or cybernetic devices for recordingbiometric data.[5][10]
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a form of neurostimulation which uses constant, low current delivered directly to the brain area of interest via small electrodes. It was originally developed to help patients with brain injuries such as strokes. Tests on healthy adults demonstrated that tDCS can increase cognitive performance on a variety of tasks, depending on the area of the brain being stimulated.[1] It has been utilized to enhance language and mathematical ability, attention span, problem solving, memory, and coordination.[1]
Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary[1] approach for exploring regulatory systems, their structures, constraints, and possibilities. Cybernetics is relevant to the study of systems, such as mechanical, physical, biological, cognitive, and social systems. Cybernetics is applicable when a system being analyzed is involved in a closed signaling loop; that is, where action by the system generates some change in its environment and that change is reflected in that system in some manner (feedback) that triggers a system change, originally referred to as a "circular causal" relationship. Some say this is necessary to a cybernetic perspective. System dynamics, a related field, originated with applications of electrical engineeringcontrol theory to other kinds of simulation models (especially business systems) by Jay Forrester at MIT in the 1950s.