“We Are Electric” delivers the shocking story of bioelectricity

we are electric
Sally Adee
Hachette Books, $30

It only took a 9-volt battery and a bit of brain zapping to turn science writer Sally Adee into a freezing sniper.

She had flown to California to test an experimental DARPA technology that used electric shocks to speed up the training of soldiers’ snipers. When the juice was flowing, Adee could tell. In a desert simulation that pits her against virtual villains, she punches everyone.

“Slamming my neurons into an electric field instantly sharpened my ability to focus,” Adee writes in her new book, we are electric. This brain stimulation experiment sparked his 10-year quest to understand how electricity and biology intertwine. And it’s not just about neurons.

Bioelectricity, according to Adee, is a surprisingly underexplored area of ​​science that covers all parts of the body. Its story is one of missed opportunity, of exposed and abandoned scientific leads, of tantalizing clues and claims, of “electroquacks” and unproven medical devices – and of frogs. Oh so many frogs.

Adee takes us back to the 18th century laboratory of Luigi Galvani, an Italian scientist in search of what gives animals the spark of life. His gruesome experiments on quivering frog legs provided evidence that animal bodies generate their own electricity, an idea that was hotly debated at the time. (So ​​many scientists repeated Galvani’s experiments, in fact, that Europe began to run out of frogs.)

But around the same time, Galvani critic Alessandro Volta, another Italian scientist, invented the electric battery. It was the kind of dazzling, story-shattering device that stole the show from animal electricity, and the nascent field crumbled. “The idea was set,” Adee writes. “Electricity was not for biology. It was for machines, telegraphs and chemical reactions.

It took decades for scientists to pick up Galvani’s experimental leads and get the study of bioelectricity back on track. Since then, we have learned how much electricity orchestrates our lives and how much there is yet to be discovered. Electricity passes through our neurons, makes our hearts vibrate and circulates in every cell of the body. We are made up of 40 trillion tiny rechargeable batteries, writes Adee.

It describes how cells use ion channels to move charged molecules in and out. One thing readers might not expect from a book that illustrates the intricacies of ion channels: it’s surprisingly funny.

Chloride ions, for example, are “perpetually shameful” because they carry a meager -1 charge. The fake medical devices (here, you’re looking, electric penis belts) were “electro-nonsense”. In his acknowledgments, Adee jokes about “Voltron’s life powers” and thanks people for enduring his caffeine jitters. This energy runs through the book, charging its narrative like a static balloon.

Adee is particularly electrifying in a chapter on spinal nerve regeneration and why early experiments stopped. Decades ago, scientists tried to coax severed nerves to reconnect by applying an electric field. The controversial technique sparked scientific drama, but the idea of ​​using electricity to heal may have been ahead of its time. Fast forward to 2020, and DARPA has awarded $16 million to researchers with a similar concept: a bioelectric bandage that accelerates wound healing.

In addition to the zingy bandages of the future, Adee describes other sci-fi devices in the works. One day, for example, surgeons may sprinkle your brain with neurograins, neural lace, or neural dusttiny electronic implants that could help scientists monitor brain activity or even help people control robotic arms or other devices (SN: 9/3/16, p. ten).

Such implants pose many challenges – like how to marry electronics to living tissue – but Adee’s book leaves readers with a sense of excitement. Not only could bioelectricity inspire new and improved medical devices, but it could also reveal a stream of unexpected truths about the body.

As Adee writes, “We are electric machines we haven’t even dreamed of in all their dimensions yet.”

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