Manipulating the Brain with Magnets

hackwrench points to this Boston Globe story, writing "Some guy has figured out how to use magnets to disable or enhance part of the brain." And this is on a part of the science spectrum not occupied by Alex Chiu.

Comments

Scientific American Frontiers Story

[Isao]

There is a related story about using an electromagnetic field to stun a portion of the brain to see how it affects congitive performance.
Scared the hell out of me.

Re:Scientific American Frontiers Story

[Simon Field]

I seem to recall Eric Wasserman giving a paper on this in 1996 or thereabouts.

There is actually a lot of stuff on this floating around the 'net, as you would expect of a technology that is that old.

Some discussions in more depth can be found here, written for a general audience, and herehere for those who want more meat.

Re:Scientific American Frontiers Story

[Alsee]

Scared the hell out of me.

An 8500 amp zap to region 5 of the limbic area will cure that. Total shut-down of the fear response.

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The Truth Machine

[Inexile2002]

While browsing a used bookstore I found a copy of a novel called "The Truth Machine" which I haven't read yet but sounded interesting. Just the implications of being able to force truth and honest under certain situations. I mean, would ANYONE vote for a canditate who refused to subject himself to honesty treatment while in office?

As scary and twisted the applications of this type of technology could be, I think that the benefits in terms of the direct applications and increased understanding of the brain would be worth it.

Now, if only we could plug one into the /. Post Comment page and reduce all the troll posts to"In Soviet Russia I'm a pathic looser with too much time on my hands and nothing valuable to say."

Re:The Truth Machine

[joto]

I mean, would ANYONE vote for a canditate who refused to subject himself to honesty treatment while in office?

Yes. I would be very skeptical to someone that has done so little, that he has absolutely nothing to hide. The fact of the matter is, I would be more skeptical to someone who accepted the "truth machine", if you couldn't even find one interesting thing there. I am not sure what kind of person that would be, but certainly not something I would call human.

I would also consider it unethical to force anyone to publicly be in a "truth machine" (well, with the possible exception of hideous crimes, etc...). While it might have it's use in some situations, those people listening and questioning should surely have taken a wow of silence. And if the information was used in e.g. a courtroom, huge steps should be taken to protect the vitnesses to limit the information gained this way to exposure by the public (e.g. only by consent of vitness and lawyer).

Testers?

[SoCalChris]

magnetic stimulators charge up to a whopping 3,000 volts and produce peak currents of up to 8,000 amps - powers similar to those of a small nuclear reactor.

Ok, seriously... Who would volunteer to have this tested on them?

Tester: Hey, would you mind if I strap this 3,000 volt & 8,000 amp electromagnet to your head?
Idiot: What's in it for me?
Tester: It'll make you go deaf & mute for a few minutes.
Idiot: Cool! When can we start?

Run of the mill memory damage

[fatcat1111]

TMS did induce several seizures in participants in the early years, but researchers have since worked out technical safety rules that prevent them and established that no significant memory loss occurs.

No, nothing significant. Just the standard 3,000 volts through the brain memory loss. Sign me up!

Old News

[DaoudaW]

Here's a story on the same researcher from 4 years ago.

Oh and by the way, the 3000 volts / 8000 amps is to power the magnet; the brain does not get zapped!

Sleeping on Airplanes

[bill_mcgonigle]

Prediction: the first consumer device to use this technology will be a headband unit that will knock out your hearing so you can actually get some sleep on an airplane.

It will be sold in Sporty's for $699 and Slashdotters will complain that earplugs work almost as well.

The next generation will actually knock you unconcious, leaving nothing to chance.

End the war on drugs

[oren]

Once the technology is out for stimulating the pleasure center in the brain, using this sort of trick, it would be the cheapest, most popular drug ever. Probably made by Sony.
As a tribute to Larry Niven, they should name it the "WireHead(TM)" after his nickname to the addicts of this "drug". Isn't modern science wonderful?
I don't want to even think of the potential use of the reverse - directly stimulating the pain center. Shudder.

Research opportunities with TMS

[penguin_bear]

Most interestingly enough though with this TMS procedure is the opportunity to simulate brain injury non-invasively. For the most part, studies particularly in neuroscience, for example neuro-linguistics, occur on post-trauma patients or split-brain patients. In these cases, injuries hardly ever are restricted to one area and problems or symptoms are compounded. From a research perspective thus, this may just offer new opportunities to understand how our brain works- defective so well as healthy functions.

Alien Abductions

[Deagol]

I remember sitting through an entire Sunday afternoon of Discovery Channel paranormal-themed shows.

One show on alien abducitons illustrated a doctor's theory that magnetic fields caused people to "experience" abductions. They sat some woman in a contraption designed to control the magnetic field in her brain. It wasn't the quick "zapping" described in this article, but was (I think) a continuous state of field applied to the brain.

It was kinda freaky. Depending on how the doctor had things set, the woman experienced floating, a feeling of paranoia and being watched, and unfocused fear.

Seemed like a plausible explanation of the adbuction experience. However, I am not convinced that such magnetic fields randomly wind up in people's bedrooms.

Re:Cellphones & powerlines

[Deagol]

Next you'll be saying that because getting X-rays of your teeth at the dentist doesn't cause cancer, we can all be content to subject ourselves to constant low does of X-rays every day?

There's a huge difference between the rare large dose of something versus chronic exposure to that same thing.

God Machine

[jayrtfm]

Wired has had some stories about this. TMS has been used to create "out of body" and religious experiances.
I wonder how long before the Scientologists start using this......

Magnetotactic Bacteria

[Gamasta]

I don't recall if those filaments were also found in humans, but I think so. Small Fe3O4 magnetized filaments. Similiar to those described in a famous article by Blakemore (i read a review in a journal from 1996). Could be the practical effect of strong magnetic fields acting on those strains.

Something on the magnetotactic bacteria is found at this page

Re:Alien Abductions [and the God Helmet]

[Ocelot Wreak]

The Dr. you are referring to was Dr. Michael Persinger from Laurentian University in Canada, whose lab has been doing this kind of research work for a number of years. He has built a "God Helmet" and a newer model called "the octopus" that allows the subject to experience the euphoria of god-like experiences, and the strange effect of time slowing down.

A previous Slashdot story "Where God Lives In Your Brain" covered most of his work on extremely low frequency electromagnetic field effects.