I don't know that much about electronics, hence my question on how stimulating electrodes work.

I recall that you need to close a circuit in order for current to pass through it, but how can it be done with just one electrode? Or do you attach two stimulating electrodes to the tissue and have the current pass between them?

Sorry if it seems like an odd question, but I am a newbie when it comes to actual electronics.

The best place to start for learning about how electrodes work, if you don't know much about electronics is probably the OpenEEG project.

http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/hw/electrodes/

Interesting.
Thanks for the link, Max. I'll see if I can find the answer to my question there.

I still don't exactly understand how to get current to pass through a single needle electrode, though.

What exactly are you trying to do? I hope your not going to try and do cranial electrical stimulation, especially with very little electronics knowledge.

Okay as far as circuits go normally all you have to do is hook up a battery to the electrode and away you go. You need to know HOW MUCH electricity is supposed to be going to the electrode - otherwise you could harm and/or kill yourself with too much power.

Also, do you have an electrode or is this a purely hypothetical question?

If you look at the circuit diagrams here http://uazu.net/eeg/ae.html

You can see how the power is being sent to the electrode. For just one electrode - you can always use a battery. There is a page here http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/hw/joe_ae/

Which modifies the first circuit on this page http://uazu.net/eeg/ae.html to power it via battery. It really depends on what electrode you have before we can talk about how to power it.

Well, not right now of course, but that's the goal I'm working towards.
I want to replicate some of the experiments with pleasure centers they did on rodents back in the 50`s.

This is the electrode in question: http://www.a-msystems.com/images/Electrode...Stimulating.jpg
So from what I understand, I should plug the battery to pin on the right and it will send the current to the needle?


Don't worry, I'm not looking forward to sticking stuff into my own brain anytime in this century xD
But yes, I see your point. The literature I've read so far suggests that the best current would be approximately several microamps.

No more comments?

Oh I didn't see that you had responded.

You shouldn't be playing around with electronics if you don't know what you are doing. Do you know how CES works?

You cant just send electricity to your brain through an electrode, thats just like taking a wire, hooking it up to a battery and sending electricity to it, it's like something out of some kind of Frankenstein movie.

Before you think about hooking up an electrode to a battery you need to know exactly how CES works and the proper use of it.

There is a lot to CES, you can't just hook an electrode up to a battery and away you go. If you are really gung ho about building one then you should take an electrical engineering course.

Overall I think its a bad idea to build one considering you can just buy one for $200. Its probably going to cost you that much anyways to build one.