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'Brain Pacemakers' Being Tested
meshmar writes "Shades of 'The Terminal Man'? Rob Stein of The Washington Post has reported, via MSNBC, that: 'A handful of scientists around the world have begun cautiously experimenting with devices implanted in patients' bodies to deliver precisely targeted electrical stimulation to the brain in hopes of treating otherwise hopeless behavioral, neurological and psychiatric disorders.' A lot of good can come out of this - potentially. But I can see a the potential for misuse too."
Shades of 'The Terminal Man'?
According to the novel a man with "psychomotor epilepsy" was severely hurting/killing people w/no memories of the events. He was implanted with some sort of device that shocked areas of his brain and stopped the seizures before they happened. The doctors chose an area of the brain that was the pleasure center. The brain began CAUSING seizures to get the shocks.
So, as long as they don't put the shocks into the pleasure centers this should work out! Sci-fi for the masses!
Note: I am only basing this on the book. IANANS (neurosurgeon).
in a kinder, more gentle way. Instead of causing huge pain in reformed criminals when they hear music, you can now just give them "corrective shocks" for the misbehaving brain segment! Next, we'll all be stepping in lock-step....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Would you use your brain pacemaker for good or for awesome?
Sent from your iPad.
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Reserve one, under the name George W. Bush. He'll need a lot of boosting in that section. Thank you.
Didn't the bad dudes in Battle Field Earth have implants that caused them to be extra agressive and bad actors.
Trust me, I speak from experience... I've electricuted myself enough times to know that only bad things come of passing electricity through the brain via outside stimulus... (notice my horrible spelling, contrary to popular belief, I used to be good at spelling until I decided to staple a live electrical wire...)
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
All Tin Foil posts can under this Thread
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Time to invest in tin foil!
Yikes.
. sh tml
http://penguinppc.org/~hollis/personal/bergeron
This would be a good thing. If I had an implant I could program my computer at work to monitor my brainwaves. When they showed I was asleep my system could give me a little wake up jolt.
"3M We don't make your brain. We make it better."
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
great.. now when I go to use the microwave, i can forget my name, shit my pants, and curb my homicidal tendancies at the same time...
Dr. Vosknocker: Now, I want you to say "doggy".
Cartman: Doggy.
Dr. Vosknocker: [to audience] Notice, that nothing happens. [to Cartman] Now, say "montana".
Cartman: Montana.
Dr. Vosknocker: Good. Now, "pillow".
Cartman: Pillow.
Dr. Vosknocker: Alright. Now I want you to say "horse f*cker".
Mrs. Cartman: Go on, honey. It's alright.
Cartman: Horse fu-- [gets shocked by the V-chip] That hurts, god damn it!
[gets shocked again]
Dr. Vosknocker: Now I want you to say "big floppy donkey dick".
Cartman: No!
Dr. Vosknocker: [to audience] Success! The child doesn't want to swear!
Cartman: This isn't fair, you sons of bi--
[gets shocked repeatedly]
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
Prosthetics will evolve from simple mimmicks for limbs to fully functional devices that will help improving life quality for may persons. You just have to plug this in your shoulder, wear this on your ear and....psst pssst....pssst....you are assimilated.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
Yeah, I think that would suppress my appetite...
I wonder if the progress of science in treating "mental illness" is potentially reducing the creativity of our race.
It's long been know that genius is "in bed" with madness.
Some of these "mad" people probably aren't mad at all.. they're just rather odd but that oddity gives can give them brilliant insight!
Simon.
Ever see the movie Southpark? Remember the device that zapped Cartman
everytime he cursed? I wonder how long, given human nature, something like
this is used for evil purposes. I don't mean to cast a shadow over what could
be a very worthy achivement, but it behooves us to properly consider the
possible...adverse reprocussions.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
Oh God no, I'll never let them put one of their mind control thingies in me. I swear, if I ever found out that they tried to put something like that in my head, I would take their stupid implant and#FA3T32FEAFf3#r325[NO CARRIER]
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Unfortunately they gave me the one, by Microsoft. Keeps rebooting me and those blue deaths are terrible... other than that, the world is pretty XP for me...
DARPA researchers are also at work on the "Brain Machine Interface" ("neuromics") project, designed as a mind/machine interface, allowing mechanical devices to be controlled via thought-power. Thus far, researchers have taught a monkey to move a computer mouse and a telerobotic arm simply by thinking about it. With arrays of up to 96 electrodes implanted in their brains, the animals are able to reach for food with a robotic arm. Researchers even transmitted the signals over the internet, allowing remote control of an robotic arm 600 miles away. In the future they hope to develop a "non-invasive interface" for human use. Says DARPA, "The long-term Defense implications of finding ways to turn thoughts into acts, if it can be developed, are enormous: imagine U.S. warfighters that only need use the power of their thoughts to do things at great distances." For years, the U.S. military has been improving its ability to reach out and kill someone. What's the mantra of the future? Maybe, if you think it, they will die. Wild weapons of DARPA
MoFscker
they can have control over my brain when they pry it out of my cold, dead skull!
Hi im ::ZAP!:: Steve, dont mind ::ZAP!:: me i use to ::ZAP!:: suffer from anxiety atta ::ZAP!:: cks. Now i just ::ZAP!:: stutter.
devices implanted in patients' bodies to deliver precisely targeted electrical stimulation to the brain
Yeah, they should watch the resistor values in that thing very very carefully.
The coolest voice ever.
C'mon.. you know you have seen that episode.... Imagine children runing around getting shocked every time they utter a curse... o-yea....
Dance mailman, dance!
zzzzzap!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
A lot of good can come out of this - potentially. But I can see a the potential for misuse too.
Nearly anything can be misused to harm. It seems that things with the most potential for good can have them most potential for misuse as well.
Slightly off-topic, but some doctors use the term "brain attack" to refer to a cerebral stroke. This term better reflects are quick and serious strokes are.
...get this urge to build a large electromagnet and aim at the head of someone with this implant? Just for the 'scientific value' off course *evil smile*
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Gee. Ya think?
Can we once and for all just declare that ANYTHING can be misued and be done with it? It's not exactly secret Jedi lore.
--- Ban humanity.
Heroin, crack, ain't got nuthin' on a street hack of this, buddy.
I've been a victiZZZZZT ... beneficiary of this technology and I would like to say it has brought me nothing but extreme paiZZZZZZT ... joy as I see that other people may now implanted with this horrifiZZZZZZZZZTTTT ... hopeful device.
They can control your mind from satellites so who needs the implants?
:)
I wonder if this could somehow help me out at the casino?
Mod +5 Drunk
Any technology can be used for good or evil. A board with a nail through it can be the beginning of a house for the homeless, or an instrument to bloody someone to death.
I'm a huge fan of new technology and was wondering when someone would start to broach this area. I've read several pages of different universities that were playing with this including my favorite Caltech. This is great as it's a step away from just having the patient hardwired into a computer system.
*DrugCheese rants*
This will get out of hand when you can get
an implant for $599 that stimulates the pleasure
centers on demand, possibly tied to your latest
VR-based game console. Now, just add some
viagra and....
OK so my first reaction brings back memories of a naked Patrick Stewart but I digress....
Some psychopath being treated with a pleasure center stimulator.
Unfortunately, he built up resistance and eventually the thing did nothing, and exacerbated his condition, and he went on a killing spree.
Granted its fiction, but it seems at least passably grounded in science.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Cortical stimulator, STAT!
So there *IS* hope for my exgirlfriend to get a working funcitonal brain?
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"You've got the crazies. I prescribe 5 milliamps every 3 hours."
The coolest voice ever.
Acupuncture for the brain, the heart, ....
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
hopeless behavioral, neurological and psychiatric disorders
But this is the exact reason why we love some of our favorite celebrities! And they are the people who can afford it.
...for your capping.
Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
I really doubt this has much potential for misuse. Whatever misuse I can think of there is an easier method already invented. I mean if you let somebody stick an electronic gismo into your body you probably are desperate or out of your mind enough to submit to most anything. That comment by the poster really needs to be backed up. Until this it's just typical slashdot ramblings.
Moderating-Metamoderating for the average person on the street!
"Buggerit!"
BZZT!
"Millenium hand and shrimp!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah, They have these for people with epilepsy. they stimulate the Vagus Nerve by sending periodic shocks.. I guess the idea is to set some regularity for the brain to base by.. but does anyone else think its dangerous to send shocks into nerves? Wouldent the heart be impacted etc?
Come on, do you really think that? How many deaths from intentional frying of heart pacemakers have there been?
I have a brain pacemaker and it sucks...*ZAP*
I mean they're fantastic.
Things look far more frightening, in fact. Genetic weapons could do more than destroy an ethnic group. They could kill according to a person's 'usefulness' or 'talents'. American journalist and bestselling author Thom Hartmann has argued that it would even be possible to kill those with the gene for attention deficit disorder. This means that if you are easily distracted and have a hard time concentrating (there could be other selection criteria as well), you could end up marked for destruction. The Mark of Doom Finally! A solution for those trolls
MoFscker
"treating otherwise hopeless behavioral,
Desire to check email "one last time" before bed
neurological
Thinking of the internet as a living entity with rights of its own, or less drastically as existing in a different legal space than 'the big blue box'
and psychiatric disorders"
Software is imbued with a desire to be free.
-Adam
"A lot of good can come out of this - potentially. But I can see a the potential for misuse too."
It's pretty ironic that the editor is paranoid about a procedure to cure paranoia.
This kitten sure doesn't look happy
but hey, if it can get all these people off prozac and bring my heath insurance price down I'm all for hooking the kittens up to serial ports or whatever to experement.
(yeah, I know that doesn't have the right pins to be a serial port..geek!)
No, it has NOT "long been known" that genius is in bed with madness. IQ has never significantly correleated with any mental disorders.
However, mental illness DOES correleate well with poverty.
And any correleation between mental illness and creativity is clearly and demostratably false. These illnesses are most often a serious disability to people with otherwise normal intelligence and creativity. To suggest to these people that it's some sort of boon would be cruel.
Some of these "mad" people probably aren't mad at all.. they're just rather odd but that oddity gives can give them brilliant insight!
No rational person would ever suggest that mere eccentricity is a mental illness.
--- Ban humanity.
For my wife...
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Maybe this technology will pave the way for other brain modifications. Maybe they could improve memory and thought in people. Could it be a future without computer monitors? /still afraid of OnStar
-
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
T. F. Gumby: Are you the brain specialist?
Specialist: No, no, I am not the brain specialist. No, no, I am not... Yes. Yes I am.
Read any good sonnets lately?
This may deliver precisely coordinated jolts of electricity upon detecting reduced brain activity...
;)
Finally a device which will stop me falling asleep during those boring meetings
Now if someone wants to suggest a particular and likely abuse for discussion, fine.
--- Ban humanity.
Just now, I realise that nobody is likely to care, but I answered the question already, so I'm posting the answer anyway.
I can't read the article. For some reason this usually happens with MSN sites. I doubt I'm the only one, so could someone post it here?
or is that your 13 year old boyfriend???
Actually, used carefully, a hammer could possibly set off a nuclear weapon. :-)
I don't think it's out of line to point out the potential for abuse.
Eh... it just seems so -5 Redundant right off the bat unless the person goes on to suggest a particular type of abuse.
--- Ban humanity.
Being able to "back up" a mind would definetly be one of those day-the-universe-changed moments. If death could mean more a loss of short-term memory since last backup, rather than loss of known existence, almost every aspect of our culture would be shaken to its core. Any number of results could be imagined.
Even if not in ROM-style form, some form of human-as-information seems innevitable. From emulation, to virtual-life recreation, to any number of things, the human experience may not be limited to DNA & brains forever. What that means for the presumed entities behind our eyes, we do not know. But perhaps that expansion of information is part of whatever human nature is.
Ryan Fenton
Y'know; I *HAVE* been thinking about overclocking my brain. Of course, the heat-sink would be a bit awkward.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
btw, what is up with the mini-flag at the top of the page?
Lasers Controlled Games!
Its like a John Grisham thriller done well.
A family friend has a daughter which such a disorder and has had something similar to this implanted in her for over a year. It has reduced the frequency and intensity of the seizures since she has had it. It does cause some discomfort at a regular interval to prevent seizures but it is a small price to pay, viewed by the parents and the child, to have less seizure. This is a great technology that needs more development.
When can I get my nervous system jacked so my reflexes will go with the gear?
Seriously, though, I can't imagine there *not* being some sort of long-term damage from piping too much non-biogenerated electricity through some sub-section of the brains neural net.
Of course, our medical establishment is giving extremely powerful central nervous system stimulants to our youth, so we know *they* don't care.
Bonus points if you get both Gibson quotes.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
The Cartman jokes...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
My iPod is my brain pacemaker, without the discomfort of an implantion surgery.
It's about time somebody came up with a better way to controll kids than ritalin.
That's not what it's for you say? Well, I say just wait and see.
Not even a tin foil hat can save you now!
But I can OUCH! see a the OUCH! potential for OUCH! misuse too.
OUCH! Dammit! Stop that!
Sort of Clockwork Orangesque, eh?
Someone will have to post a perverted mind control story on asstr.org about this
Why is there always a "I see the risk of misuse" on every new technology that comes out? Are we all mad evil scientists? One can misuse a kitchen knife and inflict far worse damage than with a brain pacemaker.
I may be wrong, but kitchen knives are considerably easiear to get a hold of.
... i know that microwave ovens and serious radio signals can cause havoc for pacemakers...
But with a brain pacemaker, does this mean that someone can blow away everyone in say, a Best Buy store or convenience store and say "THEM WIRES IN ME HAID MADE ME DO IT!!"
??
i know this sounds kinda off the deep end, but fwiw, i can attest that subwoofers (or any deep bass source such as thumpin' car stereos) *do* resonate in my skull and make be both nauseous and VERY irritable, such as instantly furious about minor stuff.
Which really sux because i'd otherwise enjoy movie theatres etc.
do() || do_not();
What's really sad, is that I've fully bought that they will probably get it to work effectively, and that this type of weaponry will actually come to fruition. Boy did they have an effect on my childhood. Hmph.
Who needs these crazy Brain-chips The Hypno-Toad can fix all brain malfunctions! All Hail The Hypno-Toad! BZzzzZZZzzzZZZ.
This isn't exactly new.
I friend of mine here in the office has a similar device for controlling his epileptic seizures. The wires run up along the Vagus nerve, while the actual implant that controls the electronic pulses resides in his chest.
Every three minutes an automated pules is sent out for a period of a few seconds, thus regulating his "brain electricity" and controlling his epilepsy. He also has a device which resembles a watch, but with the "face" on the inside of the band, and whenever he feels a seizure coming on he places the face onto his chest, over the implant, and in turns it on manually
He can actually feel the pulses along his vocal cords, and says that it took quite a while for him to adjust to the feeling of it. He's had it for almost two years.
Medtronic makes an implantable neurostimulator that treats the symptoms of Parkinsons and Natural Tremor.
n ta ble.html
http://www.medtronic.com/activa/physician/impla
The unit is implanted close to the shoulder, and the leads are fed through the neck, up to the brain.
If symptoms are isolated to one side of the body, only one set of leads are required... otherwise two sets of leads are needed to treat both sides of the body.
This is the only FDA approved implantable device for brain stimulation that I know of.
FP! (ZAP!) Damn. Well maybe we would.
Yeah, let's overclock one of these puppies! ;-)
-psy
...but only if they wire it up to the orgasm center of my brain and give me a remote control button to activate it.
Aluminum foil has already sold out at my local grocery store. COINCIDENCE? I dont think so...people are scared
there are four lights....
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I think that about says it all. Anyone who's read the book can draw the parallels to this story.
Anyone interested in the subject should google for the name Delgado. The guy worked back in the 60s and implanted electrodes in animals' brains to see what stimulating certain regions does.
One of his most well-known umm... party tricks involved him getting into a bull-fighting arena with a bull. The bull had an electrode implanted in its brain, and Delgado had a wireless transmitter in his hands. The bull charged, Delgado pressed a button, and the bull came to a screeching halt.
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Eventually these things will become most sophisticated. We'll see implants that will no only restore a variety of abilities, helping stroke patients,the brain damaged, etc., but I think we'll see implants that will give folks extreme ability in areas like memory and mathematical ability.
The big things that worry me here:
1) will these devices become virtually obligatory? Will folks be able to function in society without them?
2) what will be the real controls on what goes into these devices? Would you really want an implant with a Microsoft OS?
But I can see a the potential for misuse too.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Now step over here so I can jab this pencil in your eye, give you a paper cut across the neck and stick your fingers in this space heater.
I predict this will be the next great urban legend, following in the vein of kidney theives and zombies created by criminals. "I woke up in my room and there were wires coming out of my head. I could only scream silently in my head as my body walked out the door and proceeded to rob a bank." Hmmm...reminds me of Spock's Brain...
Xemu will get you for that, Walter. Xemu will get you for that.
it was called something like "Star Trek: TNG" and they called the implants "borg" technology....whatever that means to anyone. The special reruns quite often so you can probably still catch it on certain stations.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
We don't even know the mechanism by which the brain stores memories, let alone how to read out the entire thing. Sure, we theorize that the closeness of synaptic pathways allowing for neurotransmitters to bridge more easily has something to do with it. There are also lovely brain models in computing that have all of the power of the human eye but none of the subtlety. But nobody knows how, for example, memories are stored in a non-localized fashion, or how higher processing functions take place. Furthermore, it is getting more and more apparent that storage and processing cannot be separated out as they are in computer systems... but as there isn't a coherent, accurate model of what constitutes thought it is difficult to see how such a thing would be relevant.
In short, you might as well take an article on extra powerful pogo sticks and muse on how far off human powered space flight could be. The musing here is virtually identical, except that human powered space flight would be an original concept.
The ______ Agenda
Is I, anything? How does I persist over time?
But most important of all:
Suppose that the state of my mind is backed up to a computer and my biological existence is annihilated. Suppose that my computer mind is given function.
Is the computer mind, me?
If at time t1 my biological mind were destroyed with my body, and at time t2 the computer mind were given function, am I now at time t2 and in the computer?
I believe that the Ship of Theseus question raised over 2000 years ago is the oldest, the most enduring, and the most challenging puzzle still facing the modern mind.
Teaching white people rhythm?
I have seen severe mental illness close up, and I think that if it could be banished from our society forever we would be very much the richer for it.
Xenu loves you!
The only way I can see these things as ethically allowable is if it is mandatory that they be developed in such a way that the user can remove them at will, or failing that, that they can be deactivated at will in such a manner that only the user can reactivate them.
Abuse of these things must be impossible, not just legally but technically, before I could ever bring myself to accept them as anything but a dehumanizing abomination.
treating otherwise hopeless behavioral, neurological and psychiatric disorders. All we need is some doc to say that depression should be treated with current to the pleasure centers.
it WetRAM (TM :-) and the attempt to back it up would probably result in it being different at the end of the process than at the beginning (and you know what does to your back up, don't your?)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
How is that a troll? More like informative.
We've replaced all of your tin foil with aluminum foil, which is totally permeable to our MK-ULTRA mind control beams!
While this channel is open:
Attention!
Attention all implantees!
You will now believe that smearing cottage cheese into your hair will prevent the CIA from putting voices in your heads! Report to the nearest dumpster and root around for cartons of expired cottage cheese.
Implantees with last names beginning with a letter from A to Z should STOP taking their medication.
Implantees with last names beginning with secret alphabet letters should continue not taking their medication.
That is all.
Stefan "Mental illness is a serious thing and nothing to make fun of except by insenstive jerks" Jones
The article briefly mentioned the dark history of psychosurgery. A few interesting details were omitted however.
The most popular kind of psychosurgery ever done was the prefontal lobotomy. This technique had something of a heyday in the 1940s.
The gentleman who invented the lobotomy (Freeman) lacked any surgical training. He would perform the procedure on an outpatient basis; he drove around the countryside in his "loboto-mobile" (quite seriously) and performed thousands of the operations himself.
His method of lobotomizing involved jamming an icepick through the eye socket with a hammer, until the icepick was deeply recessed within the brain. Then he would wiggle the icepick around vigorously. (I'm not making this up). The entire procedure took less than 5 minutes. A hospital visit was unnecessary.
Freeman went around the country demonstrating the procedure in mental hospitals etc. The technique fell out of favor in the 1950s, when it was learned that lobotomies had no therapeutic value whatsoever, and often had severe and permanent side-effects.
Chips inside the head! It's coming.. It's coming! Satan laughs!
"The mark is on you now
The furnace sealed inside your head
Melting from the inside now
Waxy tears run down your face
The whore that never told her tale
Relives it every night with you
Far off stands the lamb and waits
For the wolf to come and end its life" - from 'The Book of Thel' song by Bruce Dickinson
It's been well known since Sumerian times that all you need to capture the brain's standing wave pattern is an appropriately tuned (*) brass tuning fork and a clay amphora of honey! Now procuring a suitable host for implantaion is a more difficult endeavor.
(*) yeah, like I'd tell you!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I sure did. Even ignoring the errors about brains and cloning and what not.
That's right. All your base.
in an airport bar with one of these for her epilepsy. There was a thingy implanted in her chest w/ a wire running to her head. you could see the wire just under her skin. Her voice went out and she had to explain that the wires ran near her voicebox so that when it turned on, her voice went out. She said before the device she couldn't do anything...couldn't go out w/o help, couldn't drink, couldn't do drugs, now she can do anything. Very exciting stuff!!
perl -e '$_="\007/4`\cp%2,".chr(127);s/./"\"\\c$&\""/gees
I, for one, welcome our new pacemaker overlords.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
OK, we have a "computer" here in the lab that's crashing a lot, and losing people's data, and we have this new theory for how to fix it. I don't exactly know how these "computers" work, of course, so we can't be sure... but we have some ideas gleaned we from when we used to just get rid of them when they broke. A lot of times, we'd take a computer out of the garbage pile and see what was inside. They're mostly green plastic in there. Lots of very small, small parts - too small for the eye to see. No one knows how they all work together, yet, but we put one in an X-Ray and gave it an MRI and we notice that certain parts are hotter than others when the computer is doing different tasks. Also, we put a computer in the blender and then studied the little chunks under a microscope. So we're definitely making progress.
Based on all this we figure Jim in maintenance can insert some electrical probes into the "chips" and send in little shocks with just the right voltage to stop Microsoft Word from crashing so much. Plus we think it might really help our Quake 3 framerates.
We think this could be better than the best idea we've had so far, having computer therapists sit with them and press different keys to try to recreate past successes we've had by trial and error. It couldn't be worse than our previous attempts, which involved just putting unruly computers in the closet until they got better on their own, or administering electric shocks to the outside of the case, or (my favorite) just taking the sucker down to the shop and really giving it a good whack on the drill press.
Somebody call Discover Magazine.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Ever see that episode of Cheers where Cliff gets a shock therapy decice put on him to stifle his "anti-social" behavior? Imagine doing something like that to Slashdot geeks...or juvenile delinquents (is that different from Slashdot geeks?)...or sex offenders...or YOU!
I know a guy with Parkinson's who has something like this, now, and it helped him quite a bit.
My mother suffered from Parkinson's. She got sick of all the drugs she had to take to remain functional. Her Doctor refered her to a specialist who implanted a brain pacemaker. Within a month she was off the drugs and feeling much much better.
lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)
Seem like I already use a brain pacemaker: just like the one described here
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Your brain already HAS a natural pacemaker, it's called the alpha rhythm, which cycles at about 8-10 seconds per second. All of the other brainwaves seem run to in sync with this rhythm, being in one way or another multiples of it.
You can use biofeedback (or more specifically neurofeedback) to "train up" this natural pacemaker activity, teaching the brain to relieve it's own Parkinson's symptoms. This would have the advantage of having a lot fewer side effects than opening up the skill and jamming electrified wires in your brain.
A good resource for people interested in non-surgical ways of changing their brain is Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz's book "The Mind and the Brain: neuroplasticity and the power of mental force" -- he demonstrates how people can cause profound changes in their brain wiring merely through thought.
Insight meditation, for example has been proven helpful in teaching OCD patients how to gain control over their own obsessive thoughts.
It certainly sounds sexy to have something like electric implants but there are other ways to get the benefits without the side effects of brain surgery. It's kind of like a back patient has the choice of having their vertebrae fused or going to a chiropractor or physical therapist.
Deep brain stimulation is a treatment used for various movement disorders. At a cost of about $50,000, it is not the first treatment used. It is used in patients who have failed all other treatments available, medications usually, or cannot use these treatments. It is also used in those whose disease significantly impairs their ability to function due to their abnormal movements. See www.wemove.org for more information about movement disorders and their treatment.
In epilepsy, vagus nerve (one of the cranial nerves from the head, not the brain itself) stimulation can significantly decrease seizure frequency in those patients not controlled by medictions. About 25% of all epileptics are not controlled by medications. See http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/vns.html for more information.
These treatments are carefully studied by the medical community and regulated by the Federal Drug Administration. If studies showed a treatment made people run amok or had unacceptable side effects, it would not be approved, or vould be removed from use once this was documented.
It is not realistic to worry you or society may be harmed by a neighbor with a deep brain stimulator or a vagus nerve stimulator.
Now automobiles and motorcycles-that's real danger.
ASO, MD
Neurology
why carry a gun if you cant shoot it, proably got to much kick for him anyways and will up up back in his face if he ever did use it.
Darl mcbride shoots doughnut store attendent says they were plotting on him by running linux on POS systems. more at 10!
On the bottom of the page it currently says:
"Memory fault -- brain fried"
How appropriate
I managed to get a copy of the book finally, and discovered wonderful passages such as the following on page 115:
This passage is eerily reminiscent of a passage from Richard Dawkins' "The Extended Phenotype" chapter titled "Host Phenotypes of Parasite Genes":
Seastead this.
use mobile
:)
to set your brain to a slower pace
Does anyone think this sounds remotely like the chip the "military" was using on vampires and demons to change their behavior in the second-to-last season of Buffy?
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
See you in meta mod you fucker!
... Don't talk to me about life...
A lot of good can come out of this - potentially. But I can see a the potential for misuse too.
Every single technological application or scientifiic advancement has a possible misuse. Period.
Pens! They could be used to stab people! Or worse! They could be used to write dirty words or nasty letters!
Stop jerking your knee and think of the people this can help.
-- http://vectorvector.tumblr.com/
3y3 5+1ll 0wn0rz y3w b1z1+ch.
the potential for misuse is massive, last century they put homosexuals in mental institutions to try and "cure" them, kids who where hyperactive last year have some ACRONYM assigned to them this year, send them off with chemicals in their brain at 14 and they are "normal" again
the trouble with defining mental "illness" is its based on someone elses judgement, their idea of normality which will always be biased to a degree, what was ab-normal last century (homosexuals) are completely normal today (they are even getting married)
and you want to do stick things in peoples brains so you can help them ? seems like we have been here before
A fork can kill a person.
A bomb can kill a person.
eating with a bomb is such a pain. Except with the Claymore mines: they have a nice curved spoon-like shape.
PS Don't take that 'potato-masher' grenade thing literally.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I have a relative with Parkinson's, and she recently received an implant of an electrode in each hemisphere of her brain to control the diskinesias (movements) and distonias (contractions) caused by Parkinson's. This is called "Deep Brain Stimulation" and is documented on the Parkinson's Foundation website.
The device has greatly lowered her dose of medications, and made it possible for her to sleep through the night and get up in the morning. The devices are connected by wire to pacemaker-like battery and control packs implanted beneath the skin of the shoulder. They can be toggled on and off with a remote control provided to the patient, and wirelessly adjusted as to frequency and strength of pulses by the doctor.
This is quite different from the surgery received by Michael J Fox, which actually involved removing a small section of brain -- the same one being stimulated by DBS -- so he is ineligible for that treatment.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Considering that decisions from the top can result in fatalities, I wonder if our President's numbskull antics the past four years have accelerated the research to cure stupidity.
= 9J =
"I'm a candidate for ECT."
Ask your doctor "if I had some LSD and was going to try it no matter what you said, what advice would you give me to maximize the chances of the experience benefitting my condition."
Then think about using LSD.
Then try it or something like it (ask doctor) or not.
At the end of December I was diagnosed with having seizures. Since Jan1 04 I have had 39 seizures, some of which come in clusters of 4 and 5 within an hours time.
This could be a god send for people like me. Currently the tech is not there to understand how the brain works let alone control the mind of the person who has it implanted.
So before everyone gets on their parnoid high horse about this being the begining of 1984, Think about what good can come about because of tech like this.
Quote form War Games " I'd piss on a sparkplug if I thought it would help "
Can Smeg!!! Will Smeg!!!
For the mini-flag, and then I had to re-read a whole bunch of comments to find my place again!
"The babelfish lead to longer and bloodier wars than ever before..."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'm ready for my droud
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Oh you just reminded me of that old Farside cartoon where one scientist is carefully hammering a panel onto the side of a nuclear bomb, and another scientist is carefully sneaking up behind him holding an inflated paper bag in one hand...
I work as a software engineer for the second biggest medical electronics company in that field (Medtronic being the biggest). I can't speak for them, but nothing goes into an implant that is not supposed to be there for functionality of what it's designed for. With the FDA constantly looking at us, we verify and validate the heck out of these things. My boss actually developed the Epileptic Stimulator pretty much all by himself back in the late 80's and early 90's. It's gone though through testing since then. It takes forever for this stuff to get put into a human. And these things are real simple. If you saw the code in these, there is no way they could do anything "evil". There is just enough code to keep time and shock the nerve ever so often, and some user settings. In order to make these last longer than a few months, the processor is clocked down into the khz and just enough code to get the job done and that's it. In this business it's all about how long the device will last till it has to get explanted. There is no way we would give up longevity for having some government mind control v-chip or something. And I'm not a Dr. but I think the electrical shock doesn't trevel that far, it starts getting "absorbed" as it traveles, so danger to the heart from a nerve stim is pretty much nil. In fact they even see that people who use the Epileptic Stimulator also seem to have a better mood. They think that no only will it help against tremmors, and parkenson's but depression as well. I suppose that if you let your mind run away with you, you could see the potential misuse in just about anything. But with how simple these are and how we want to sell these to help people (and profit) we don't want any bad press, we want people to want these. And there is no way something "bad" could be put in these with no one noticing. And if it got out, it could ruin a company. And I know that we woudln't want that to happen. I feel bad, cause I see how these help people in Europe and the FDA takes such a long time to convence that people suffer while we are jumping though hoops for them. I know people who could be helped now. I guess it's good for lots of testing though. :)
"My boss actually developed the Epileptic Stimulator pretty much all by himself back in the late 80's[. .
Think about it. This is not Star Trek way-off technology. I know, but I won't say how.
Believe me. Nothing the media tells you is new is actually new. We have ray-guns and teleporters, people. We have had them for some 'time'. Lift the curtain once in a while if you are interested in knowing what's really going on in the world. Be prepared though. If you have no spine, then that Rabbit hole ride will shatter your life but good. Most sleepers sleep for a reason. Only problem is that sleepers are worthless in the bigger scheme of things; they get left behind. .
You have all watched those Holodeck-Logan's Run-THX1138-George Orwell-Matrix adventure stories, and thought to yourselves, "I'd have figured it out. I wouldn't have been one of those wieners in the background!"
Talk is cheap and 'time' is short.
-FL
The brain consists of a number of neurons that communicate with each other at high speed
However, inside every neuron and every guard cell is a protein based structure. The number of connections indicates that if it were a computer (it is too small to determine its function easily), than its computer power is approximately that of an IBM supercomputer.
Unfortunately, there is more than that. Much of memory cannot be localized in any part of the brain at all. Note that patients reciving hemospherictomies[sp?] do not loose half their memory of before that time.
Therefore, the state of the mind is larger than the state of the brain.
Imagine a Beowulf clu-BZZZT ungh...
OK I'm all better now.
That is the flag image. It appeared a few times at the very top of the page, centered above the banner ad. I have no idea what it is about.
Lasers Controlled Games!
A lot of good can come out of this - potentially. But I can see a the potential for misuse too.
Both good, and misuse -- as with recreational drugs.
-kgj
-kgj
I've just got this to say about that:
They just better not enable wireless access to this thing.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
...for beneficent use as well. Here's an example concerning concepts that they're teaching us right now in med school where they have able to treat a Parkinsons like disease...
n st imuPD.htm
http://neuroanatomy.wisc.edu/selflearn/deepbrai
"A lot of good can come out of this - potentially. But I can see a the potential for misuse too." EVERYTHING has the potential for misuse.
I've tried more than a half-dozen antidepressants, but I really liked the MAOI-inhibitor Parnate. Within minutes of taking it in the morning I would be wide awake and alert beyond what coffee or any other stimulant ever did for me. I had to be prescribed something to sleep at night, but other than that, it was great. I could not stick to the diet restrictions, however and now I'm back on a ssri. I too have seen ECT and talked with ECT patients. It seems healthier to me than taking heavy duty chemicals daily, but who would keep the big Pharmaceutical companies so profitable if we don't take their pills?
Seriously, it'd probably do alot less damage to you, and it'd certainly make you happy(while on it).Although I suspect that with all the brain rotting "medicines" you've already been given you seriously can no longer understand why ECT is bad.
Brain surgery is a major invasive surgery, too bad or I'd consider getting it.
;)
I have epilepsy caused by sleep deprivation - its pretty rare. Under medication I don't have too many problems. Except for the medication itself. The cure is worse than the condition sometimes. I wish that there was some other way to control this other than medication - sleep is a cure, yes technically, but its not that simple.
Just a rant but I wish people would stop making jokes about seizures. They're not funny. I've had a major one once and was out cold for about 20 minutes. Other than risking brain damage, and death (depending on where you are at the time) your body hurts like hell for weeks after since the muscles were contracting so hard. I hurt for over 4 weeks and I'm a pretty fit person.
Rather than stimulate the brain, they should use this sort of technology for Spinal Cord injury patients. The brain would be wired with sensors and the stimulators will be placed at key locations below the injury.
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
Hollywood has already done a movie about this called "Freejack".
Tap into the auditory nerves so I can use it as a radio.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Because everything that's on TV/in books, is TRUE.
Certainly, it is a possibility to keep in mind, but let's not toss the idea aside because a work of ficition argues against it.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
A fork *can* kill a person. How 'bout that? Um... oh,oh. Like Socrates said: Oh the tines, oh the morals!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
-They're effective as all hell
-They work best for movement disorders, such as Parkinsons, as well as Chronic pain
-The surgury itself is pretty drastic; you have to literally drill holes in people's heads... And the patient has to be consious. Numbed up, but consious.
-There are some side effects if it isn't done properly.
Some of her cases include one guy who had the electrode too deep, which caused a deep depression as it was stimulating too much area. They moved it a notch up, and the depression faded instantly. Another case included a cop that would have to leave his job if he kept on having this chronic pain that kept him from working, but he is not back on the job and loving it.
One thing she we have talked about is that it would be interesting to use them for psychiatric disorders, but with doctors perscribing ritalin and prozak at the drop of a hat, it's not a good thing to suddenly have holes drilled into kids heads.
Also, I asked about replacing ECT with Deep brain stimulation for depression, but apparently ECT is much cheaper. Pity.
Still, this is a LONG way away from stuff like the Matrix and Ghost in a Shell. Currently it just controls overactive areas of the brain that cause neurological diseases, nothing more, nothing less. Don't get your hopes up quite yet.
crap. where the hell do I remember this line from? I crack up every time I think of it. Something to do with a dart in a guy's head. commercial?
First, this is not new. Grenoble is behind the curve. I've seen patients with implanted stimulators from years ago. These were for treatment of Parkinson's. It's hardly the optimal solution, but it's the best so far, even better than most of the drugs we use. Some day this will be "stone knives and bear claws". Right now it's cutting edge.
Second, it is trivial at best to foresee abuses. The trick is in recognizing the over-reaching fact that the abuses never have anything to do with the technology involved. Those who will abuse will do so whether they have an electrical stimulator or just the rubber hammer used to test your reflexes (corrective phrenology, anyone?). These people don't even need technology to do this; they will do it gladly with no technology at all. Focusing on the abuses the technology may be put to takes the focus away from the people who will do such things, allowing them to get on with their business.
Third, there are a lot of people out there who need something, and society in general dictates that there be someone to take care of them. Hopefully, trained specialists who can help them, but also the sad fact is because most people don't want to have to deal with it. They insist on, and are glad to have, someone fulfill the role required so they don't have to, including having to have the people with problems around them. Unfortunately these people also tend to feel guilty when they see others suffering, and rather than appreciate the fact that someone else is doing the best they can, they get upset because that person is not doing a better job. Sooner or later the people doing the helping get blamed for not being better than they are, ie. they're not perfect.
Believe it or not, lobotomy was a god send. It still can help many people. People decry electroshock therapy, but the fact is for a lot of people, it's their only hope of a normal life. People got upset that many mental patients were stuck in hospitals with no hope of improvement and so insisted that we let them out; now those same people are no better or worse than they were, but the are far better off, since many of them are the chronic homeless (you won't give them housing, but you won't let us keep them warm and fed).
If you want to help, aren't of the bent to help develop the tools and techniques to help people like I do, then at least keep your eye out for the kinds of people that will abuse, and get rid of them. They cause us who have to try to help people far more problems than they do others. They give us a bad name and make people suspect us. Root those people out and do something about them. Or else shut the hell up and stop repeating the painfully obvious paternalistic mantra "they might do bad things!". It's helping nothing and it's annoying.
Rant not off. I'm not done. Not until I stop trying to develop new ways to help people, and that'll probably happen when I die or need that kind of help myself. And it won't end then because I'll train every student of mine along the way to fight this same fight. You want us to do this. You NEED us to this this. Help us do this by focusing on finding abusers and getting rid of them, so we can get on with the role that society demands exist, and we have chosen to fulfill.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
ECT should be your absolute last option. I have seen several people subjected to it and the result is the temporary erasure of their personalities. With repeated shocks the results become permanent. The place where I used to work, it was used more for punishment of bad behavior than for treatment.
FYI, there's another option besides ECT. There's a new technology called Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS). brief intro here
rTMS seems to have cured the depression that I had going on for the last 10 years (I'm 22). I'd tried nearly every kind of antidepressant, with no good/lasting results, and was ready to off myself, as I didn't consider ECT an option due to the risk of memory loss and/or brain damage. I was the one to mention rTMS to my last shrink (learned about it online, Wired might have had the first mention I saw), and somehow got a referral. I had an initial appointment, a brain scan the next day, and the day after that I was told & shown that parts of my brain were abnormal hyperactive and drawing resources away from the other parts. I had my first rTMS treatment that day and started a low dose anti-epilepsy drug and, tho I barely believe it myself, haven't been depressed since. The only side effects I've had are excedrin-treatable headaches here and there, and increased mileage on my car due to driving to chicago for maintenance treatments.
When I say I haven't been depressed, I mean the following:
Sad thoughts will happen, but my brain doesn't grab them and run off into despair anymore. Sometimes I'll come across thoughts that just a month and a half ago would have sent me into hours of crying or inertia, but now I'm able to be mindful, to go "oh, that's sad. hmm. that's sad because xyxyxy. I might as well think about something else." And then I do so and the parts of my brain that were white (overactive) in the scans don't dominate and I can just be myself and go about my day. I feel like my full brain capability is back. I'm more attentive, more creative. I actually feel like getting out of bed and doing things.
AND I can use my laptop, read, or even play gameboy during the treatments! in a comfy chair!
Plus now I have cool pictures of my brain!!!! I'm psyched to get scanned again and see what my normal brain activity looks like.
Seriously, go see a neurologist and definitely get a brain scan before getting ECT. IMHO, ECT is too broad a disruption to the brain when it's quite possible that it's more of a localized problem. rTMS is precise, requires no anesthesia or muscle relaxants (all you have to do is keep your head still), and far, far less neurological side effects like memory loss. (I haven't forgotten a single thing).
aie, what a first post. had to say something, tho.
as to the initial article, the implants would be a fantabulous idea for people who respond to stuff like rTMS but need it very frequently to keep sane. where I am now, I'd rather go to the doctor's periodically than have something stuck in my head, unless it gave me superpowers or something.
The refuge of people who cannot argue anything better.
/. It's only a matter of time before they replace sensible discussion in the public world. Oh... wait...
We should not try something that makes perfect sense and is good because if we did it something else that is similar, but significantly different, all society would collapse.
First, we taught morons how to talk. Now they're posting on
Seriously, slippery slope statements seem such sensational senseless simpleton shit.
It appears I trod on some mentally ill toes in this thread.
--- Ban humanity.
And you completely missed the point of my response to the original post, as did most of those who replied to me, which is a pretty common thing around here, sadly.
--- Ban humanity.
I've had ECT. Eight times over two weeks in 2002. I have some memory loss surrounding that time, but I was in the middle of a two month psych stay and I know I didn't miss much. My personality wasn't erased. It is a last resort - when I got to that point I hoped it would erase the prior 4 years. But it didn't, and the procedures eliminated the psychotic symptoms I had and helped reduce the depression for several months.
Given the history of ECT it was a very scary thing for me to consent to, but if it wasn't available then I wouldn't be writing this now.
..close your eyes and this post will disappear..
Hmmm.
Implants in people to modify their behavour.
Must every Slashdot submission end with "But I can see a downside to this technology." ? Do submitters think that this makes them look insightful? Oooh, the big picture. Thanks for pointing that out!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
No, you are the one who missed the point of your parent's post. Upon further research, I say that creative genius strongly correlates with mental illness in general and manic-depression in particular.
You replied that most of the mentally ill are not geniuses and that many of them are poverty-stricken. While this is true, it is completely irrelevant to the question at hand: if we electrochemically block the pathways of mania, will some of humanity's genius be blocked with it?
Don't forget my favorite, Electroconvulsive Therapy. Still in use today!
Psychotherapy, cognitivie science... today we are about in the leeches and cauterization phase.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!