#eegs

Still life with eegs   -   Ingrid Smuling , 2005.

Dutch, b.1944 -

so. if i didn't misunderstand, electrodes get the electricity from the brain and make graphs based on the brain activity (which generates the electricity in question! i think!)

so could you hypothetically get the electrodes, maybe modify them, and then use eeg-esque technology to use the brain as a power source? maybe make an endless energy system by using the heightened activity in my brain while reading fanfic to charge my phone at the same time???

this is probably very stupid i am so sorry if i am wasting your time with this ask

This is a very good question and probably something a lot of people have thought to ask and also not gotten very good answers on.

I hope I can answer, if I get something wrong and someone notices please correct me.

The short answer is that while there is detectable voltage in human nerve/brain cells, we don't have any current that can (at least at this point in scientific advancement) be collected, stored, and used.

There are a lot of things in our body that use electrical voltage to send and receive signals between different cells. Voltage can be understood as potential energy. It's a difference in charge between two locations, which would entice electrons to move between those locations. In this case, however, the measurable voltage is between the inside and outside of long, tubelike nerve cells, but there are no electrons moving between those locations.

When the brain wants to send a signal somewhere in the body (or somewhere else in the brain), it initiates a tiny buildup of energy at one end of a nerve cell. When the buildup (called an action potential) gets strong enough, the first of many charged ions flip between outside and inside the cell wall. This kicks off more ions to flip and reset, which changes the voltage sequentially down the long side of the cell (this is what we colloquially refer to as an electrical signal in the body). When the signal gets to the end of the cell, the end of the cell squirts out a neurotransmitter, which causes changes in the cells around where that nerve ending is, hopefully causing the action the initial brain cell wanted.

Now, this creates a tiny, moving change in voltage, but since it doesn't cause electrons to move, there's no actual current (which you can think of as the moving electrons themselves).

And unfortunately, since it's those moving electrons you need to power stuff, you need current to power an electronic device or charge a battery.

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