A DEVICE that stimulates a nerve leading to the brain can help you learn unfamiliar sounds in a new language. Vagus nerve stimulation has been used for more than 20 years to treat conditions like epilepsy, but it usually involves surgery to implant electrodes by the nerve in the neck. Matthew Leonard at the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues have developed an earbud-like electrode that can stimulate part of the vagus nerve without the need for an implant. His team tested the in-ear device in 36 English-speaking people, stimulating their nerves imperceptibly sometimes while they tried to identify sounds in Mandarin - a language they didn't know. Twelve of the volunteers didn't receive any stimulation.
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