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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."
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.
Yikes.
. sh tml
http://penguinppc.org/~hollis/personal/bergeron
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*
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.
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?
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.
well the first thing I thought of was... (recreational) drugs. think (rec)drugs mess up your mind now, wait till we get electronic computerized drugs...
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
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
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.
-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.
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
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.
At the risk of feeding a troll, I see that you don't seem to use your brain. A.C.
What I was posting info about was the quote at the end with the possibility of misuse. That possibility is so close to 0 it's not even worth mentioning. I have only worked in this industry since 1991.
And there is a huge difference between "brain stimulation" and "deep brain stimulation". Brain stimulation is though a nerve going into the brain like with the Epileptic Stimulator to the Vegus nerve. Deep brain is putting an electrode deep inside the brain.
Either way it, to me (not a Dr. but an engineer) I'm just asked to creat a constat current source or a voltage differental for a time every so often. And that is all these devices to. They are programmable to deliver differnt pulses, but there is nothing that could be considered misuse. These are VERY simple devices.
Heck, the top physicians in the world don't even understand exactly why this stuff works, but it does.
And I'll bet the people that get implanted with the devices that I work on are very glad I use my brain and test the heck out of these things. To make sure it's supposed to do exactly what I mean it to do and only that.
And I prey every day that I never need one of these devices. What these things cure (Epilisy, Parkinsons, Chronic Pain, etc....) are really rough illnesses. My heart goes out to those who have them.