What Does 50,000 Volts From a Taser Do to Your Brain?

New research has found that an increasingly popular law enforcement weapon, the Taser stun gun, can create short-term cognitive impairment comparable to dementia, NBC News reported.

In a study published this month in the journal "Criminology & Public Policy," researchers from Arizona State University and Drexel University examined what they describe as a little known corner of the criminal justice world: the effect of 50,000 volts on a person's brain.

"There are plenty of people in prison who were tased and then immediately questioned," one of the researchers, Robert Kane, said in a statement published with the study. "Were they intellectually capable of giving 'knowing' and 'valid' waivers of their Miranda rights before being subjected to a police interrogation?"

The researchers recruited 142 brave college students from Arizona State to be tased for science. Unlike the "typical suspect," the study notes, whose cognition may be diminished by drugs, alcohol or mental illness at the time of arrest, the students were forbidden from drinking and using drugs.

Contact Us