Slashdot Mirror
'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.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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*
OK so my first reaction brings back memories of a naked Patrick Stewart but I digress....
"You've got the crazies. I prescribe 5 milliamps every 3 hours."
The coolest voice ever.
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.
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.
Only on slashdot would someone try to make a serious point and use South Park as an example.
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
"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.
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.
Just now, I realise that nobody is likely to care, but I answered the question already, so I'm posting the answer anyway.
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!
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
But I can OUCH! see a the OUCH! potential for OUCH! misuse too.
OUCH! Dammit! Stop that!
Sort of Clockwork Orangesque, eh?
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.
Yeah, let's overclock one of these puppies! ;-)
-psy
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.
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."
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.
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.
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!
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)
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.
Chicks with small tits?
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
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.
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 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. :)
-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.
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..