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Scientist to Implant Electrode in His Own Brain?
BartlebyScrivener writes to tell us the MIT Technology Review is reporting that even thought scientists know quite a bit about the brain, one researcher is trying to take it a step further towards understanding consciousness by implanting an electrode in his own brain. From the article: "Bill Newsome, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, has spent the last twenty years studying how neurons encode information and how they use it to make decisions about the world. In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain. The findings gave neuroscientists enormous insight into the inner workings of the brain."
I've been looking for a remote controlled neuroscientist for years!!!
Finding other idiots on
Most hardcore scientist ever. He's going to implant it in his own head with no anesthesia.
to the "Wire" from Ringworld... where do I sign up?
Hmm, I wonder how likely it is that he'll end up with a Darwin award...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
n the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain.
Hey, I can get a monkey to respond differently to its environment by sending electric shocks to any part of its anatomy, why go to the bother of wiring up its brain directly.
That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
They found that different brain centers controlled the amount of feces the monkey would fling.
Further study will confirm whether humans can be influenced in a similar manner.
This story sounds shocking to the mind.
Join the TWIT army now!
Taking the brain out was the easy part. The hard part was taking the brain out.
MIT Scientist becomes one with the borg.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
So he completed the "Monkey Test" and now moving on to Human interface testing. Good luck
"Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?"
"That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me."
In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain.
But were they able to finally help monkeys write A Tale of Two Cities without that pesky "It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times..." typo? Stupid monkey!
Join the TWIT army now!
I mean, what will happen when the implant is turned on and the neuroscientist becomes self-aware?
"In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain. The findings gave neuroscientists enormous insight into the inner workings of the brain."
And from this we have come to the conclusion that the monkey really hated it
How long we can get chips in our brains that will make us smarter?
It's good to see that "thought scientists know quite a bit about the brain."
The article is full of how he wants to do it, but would probably have trouble getting approval and so on. If this is news, alert the media that one day I "want" to fly around in a jetpack while robot slaves do all my work and it rains Kool-Aid.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I am billnewtus, of borg. Resistance is futile. I have analyzed your neuropathways as unable to resist us. Lower your firearms and surrender.
Somehow I am reminded of this: http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/
I am Locutous of Borg...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Can you really gather that much information from a single electrode in a single location? I would have thought this would be of pretty limited benifit. Still I'm not a neuroscientists - maybe it's going to give stacks of data.
I can't believe we still know so little about how the brain works actually. It feels like all our attempts to understand it (PET, MRI, electrodes, etc), while amazing, as still at the caveman stage of development e.g. hit it with a rock until it does something. I would have thought there would have been far more interest into researching how the brain functions.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Hmmmm...
"alas, it still requires messy medical science to implant a Google chip in your brain"
A science fiction story came out with this title many years ago (by Larry Niven). From what I remember of the story, a man has an electrode implanted to stimulate the pleasure center in his brain, plugs himself into the wall, and then starves to death as the power cord isn't long enough to reach the refrigerator!
Isaac Newton poked a bodkin through his eyelid and prodded the outside of his eyeball to convince himself that sensations of light originated in the eye.
. implicit all IIRC IM*HO £0.02 YM?V
Isn't this how most comic book supervillians get created? Scientist tries new procedure on themselves to produce extraordinary results. I'm thinking we should take names for what his supervillian name should be and who his archnemesis is.
And since he will then be no longer in a position to make an objective observation, the monkeys will start making experiments with him.
But seriously, experiments like this will ultimately lead to a more inhuman society. Think of cops with satellite aided
vision or marines with remote controlled wapons. There should be an international law/treaty against it, like we have for certain biological wapons or nukes.
he will exchange the neural information between this chicken, and this rabbit. Hey, where's the rabbit? NO, DON'T PULL THAT *BZZZZT*
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
I'm sure his tombstone will read:
...
Chased a dream
... but never got around to
reading the second half of
Michael Chrichton's
"The Terminal Man."
My work here is dung.
So what happens when he finds the one that's already there!?
How many times do we have to say it? "Don't Experiment on Yourself!" That is what Igor and the unsuspecting villagers are for.
Doesn't this guy READ the Journal of Mad Scientists and Eccentric Inventors?
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Remember how Terminal Man turned out?
His goal was not to progress on human-machine interfaces, but to investigate on what consciousness is, and on the impact of sending electrical signals to the brain.
A waste of time, and dangerous if you ask me.
How much data CAN one collect from a brain so disfunctional it doesn't even care to protect the skull it's it?
RTFA, this was supposed to be a romantic Valentine's Day present for his girlfriend (complete with remote).
My work here is dung.
... NOT to give the wife the remote...
And the first death of CS begins.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
If the headline has a question mark, it's not news, it's speculation about the future.
Get back to us when something happens.
Quick, get Cheney on the phone, this has so many practical applications!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Do the "thought" scientists work with the thought police?
"Bill Newsome, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA...
If this works, he should be calling himself Bill Awesome from now on.
from the to-stupid-for-words dept.
Clearly the new generation of electrodes don't need to be implanted to control human behavior - like implantation as part of their reproductive cycle.
--
make install -not war
I've read through the article, but I still don't understand how this really qualifies as science. It doesn't sound like he has a well defined question he's trying to answer beyond "the connection between brain and consciousness", which leaves a lot to be desired. How is he going to judge the effects if electrical stimulation? In what part of the brain is he going to implant the electrode? In short, how is going to prevent fooling himself?
The whole thing just sounds a bit obsessesive rather than scientific.
AccountKiller
After the implant, can he run Linux? (sorry, couldn't resist)
ConsultingFair.com
Aim for the pleasure center!
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The hard part was implanting the implant!
Dateline January 15, 2007 -
Profoundly stupid scientist dies after screwing around with his brain.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Dr. Egon Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
I mean, how much is a single electrode or electrode array in IT likely to tell us about consciousness? Considering that an intracranial electrode would eliminate our chances of putting him in an fMRI magnet, and also that it would significantly complicate scalp EEG recordings of any resulting neural activity, his primary experimental method is introspection. Is that really a step forward from introspection without an intracranial electrode?
It seems much more safe and efficient to spend the time (and insurance money) on TMS self-experimentation.
"The findings gave neuroscientists enormous insight into the inner workings of the brain"
Funny this is the exact way that the functions of the brain where mapped out. When cancer patients went in for surgery local anesthetic was given (the brain has no pain receptors, only the skin, skull, and the membranes around the brain). The doctors after surgery would stimulate different areas of the brain with extremely low voltages and observe the response in the patient. Sometimes the patient would smell a rose, other times muscles would twitch, and sometimes the patient would fall asleep. There is a study from the 50's that linked aggression to a certain region in the brain. When a cat had its lateral hypothalamus stimulated it became ferocious and would attack anything in sight. On the other hand when the Ventral Hypothalamus was stimulated the cat would recoil in fear when it saw even a baby mouse.
Now it is true that we are learning more and more about the brain and its region specific functions everyday. But take it from me this is more of a publicity stunt then someone trying to do real science.
I should point out that Newsome is a fairly well known name in the Neuroscience field. And however crazy this idea is (which, IMHO, is really high up there), he wouldn't be the first neuroscientist to do an experiment on himself. I can't remember his name, but another person vivesected his own arm to understand how sensory nerves worked. Not to mention, researchers put themselves in TMS machines, that essentially shuts down parts of the brain by means of large magnetic fields.
For anyone who can read french (don't know if its been translated yet) I recommend reading "L'ultime secret" from Bernard Werber. For anyone who's not familiar with his work, he's an immensily popular author who wrotes the series Les Fourmis and Les Thanatonautes (death voyager).
It seems very a propos since the main character ends up having an electrode implanted in his brain... Good book (as long we you're willing to forgive him for the techno-mumbo jumbo about AI and stuff)
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
Why not just meditate?
Better not let that get infected. And avoid accidentally bumping your head in a way that might cause the fixed-position electrodes to slice through your brain.
Isn't this how "Doc Oc" started?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
If he becomes the first in a race of cyborgs to exterminate humans, can we get a collective darwin award?
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Do you know how many superheros were done in by their own capes?
In the words of Edna Mode - "NO CAPES!"
Live forever, or die trying.
Sure sure sure, they can allow this to happen so that he can activate the pleasure part of his brain.... but NOOOOO they can't let us activate the pleasure part via crack/cocain. {sarcasm)This seems so fair(/sarcasm) Then again they might make it a tax evasion to allow him to do this, then make it punishable.
I hope he has an inhibitor chip in that thing and that it doesn't get fried. But then again, he doesn't have 4 mechanical arms plugged into it, so that's a plus.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
Not to worry, Gromit - just a bit of harmless brain alteration.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
I will review Edna's report tonight and reconsider the cape... but I was really counting on it to help disguise my lack of super-muscles.
Another Captain Cyborg see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/22/captain_cy borg_lives/ arises! Remember, guys, don't let being a complete nonentity who knows nothing about the field you're dabbling in ever hold you back.
Sheesh.
What is it with supposedly smart people doing stupid things and then telling people about it? OK, Newton's beyond "supposedly smart", but that just makes my point even stronger.
Great, now we just have to work out the hardware support and we can have the first human Gentoo machine
In Soviet Russia, monkey sticks electrode in your brain!
... but he won't need a bed, he's a digital man.
"In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain. The findings gave neuroscientists enormous insight into the inner workings of the brain."
No shit!? Hamster grabd cupcake, gets jolted, learns to fear cupcake and never touches it again, while Bart continues to grab for the cupcake...Ow! Quit it! Ow! Quit it! Ow! Quit it! MMMMM Wise guys eh? Ow! Quit it!
I've heard he's just going to have Chuck Norris deliver it to his cortex with a precision roundhouse kick.
Geeze, this sounds like Ghostbusters...???
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Dr. Egon Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
Can we even scientifically study consciousness? A large component of what most of us mean by consciousness is probably metaphysical. Certainly it is inherently subjective. While I think that neurobiology and neuropsychology are worthy enterprises, it seems like they should invent a new term for what they mean by consciousness.
This is a huge undertaking though. It took physics a long time (what, ~170 years after Newton) to be able to understand how microscopic physics related to the behavior of a simple macroscopic gas. They really even didn't really get it right until after Planck. The brain is, of course, much more complicated than a simple gas, and the chemistry controlling the action of individual neurons is much more complicated than Newton's physics. Maybe the standards for "understanding" are lower, but all the same, this is going to be extremely difficult, I imagine, if it is even possible. (As I understand it, there are certain philosophers who think it is not, but I am not in a position to have an opinion.
This somehow reminds me of Tom Tucker's apology on a season 2 episode of Family Guy. I wonder what this guy did to seek an apology?
At least he's a scientist with proper equipment and connections to skilled people who could make this a reality. Unlike the trepanning freaks who use Black and Decker drills and coat hangers in their living rooms. Those people are also looking to expand their consciousness using this age old technique, but if you ask me, they're insane. Hell, after reading half the treppaning stories online, I think I'd prefer surgery by Dr. Frankenstein over some of the wild eyed extreme types doing this stuff at home. Just watch for copycats. Possibly some of them here on Slashdot. They'll hear about this guy doing it and think, "Oh. He did it? I can do it just as well at home witha Makita!". Freaks.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I, for one, welcome our new implanted-electrode-wielding scientist overlords!
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
I can't believe we still know so little about how the brain works actually
Understanding how a closed-source program works can be impossible when you're restricted from directly interacting with the program.
Given the moral/ethical restrictions we place upon researchers, it's amazing the amount we DO know.
*beep beep*
Security guard: Sir, could you step over here for a moment. You've set off the metal detector.
Dr. Newsome: Oh, you must be referring to my cleverly implanted electrode that I put in my brain. Here's my doctor's note explaining the whole thing.
Security guard: Right, you put an electrode in your own brain?
Dr. Newsome: Just read the note, it'll explain everything.
Security guard: Sir, this note is signed by yourself. You can't write your own doctor's note. Do you have any other documentation? A note from your mother perhaps...
Dr. Newsome: No, but can I get on the plane now?
(I'm all for deep brain stim, as it has been proven to help with Parkinson's and other nervous disorders, but putting it in *yourself* is just hotdogging.)
People already gather lots of information from neurosurgical patients. Fred Lenz at Johns Hopkins is a great example. In his experiments, they basically recreate the Penfield experiments in awake humans, probing at different positions in pathways, and asking qualitative and quantitative questions of their patients.
Of course, their electrodes are there for a reason. The patients have intractable movement disorders or chronic pain, and Lenz is there to help.
Now, Bill Newsome has been "saying" he wants to do this experiment for over a decade. But the bottom line is anytime you stick a microelectrode in the human brain, there is a change you will rupture a blood vessel and cause from minor to major damage. Your patient can die on the table. And besides that, there are several groups taking advantage of neurosurgical patient access to do the same experiments on a more limited basis. I honestly think it is a really stupid idea to use a National Academy of Science member like Bill Newsome as a guinea pig. They should get Rush Limbaugh or Jerry Springer to volunteer.
I agree with your post but would change one thing. We do not 'know that the brain operates on a neural network'. Neural networks are models, usually constructed by comp sci students, that bear little direct resemblance to actual functioning of neurons. Basically at best they are intended to be a plausible reconstruction of how clusters of neurons *might* work--but it is not the case that they have been conclusively shown to be an accurate representation of how clusters of neurons actually *do* work.
Now, we can surmise from basic observation of brain structure and activity that it does operate as some kind of network. But this is a far cry from the kinds of 'neural nets' that people construct on computers. Don't be fooled by the occasional over-eager slashdot posting cogsci/compsci student who claims that the brain actually functions this way. The fact is it could function totally differently, and in fact it is likely to given that it is infinitely more complex than the most complex of 'neural networks' constructed by anyone so far.
There is hope for /.ers after all.
"Scientist to Implode Electrode in His Own Brain" That is what I read the first time. Quite a different outcome than just implanting!
Surgeon: There. It's done
Scientist: Well... Bill, what's it like?
Bill: Whoa! I know kung-fu!
Scientist: Show me!
KUNG-POW!!!
Don't let him meet Captain Cyborg
It starts with a little electrode in the brain to "better understand human consciousness" but pretty soon it is an Orwellian nightmare
You can find more from Kevin's Yamaha YM3812 ^W^W mouth here
'Scientist to implant' means that the scientist is actually doing the implanting. One would assume what the author meant was 'Scientist to have [electrode] implanted'.
I mean, actually implanting anything into your own brain, unless done at velocities exceeding 300 feet per second, would be a pretty neat trick.
Can't think of a single thing...
He's probably going to wire his pleasure centre so he won't have to spank his monkey any more. He'll be over in the corner drooling in a state of perpetual orgasm.
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
Paradox Farnsworth: Oh, the easy part was getting the brain out, but the hard part was getting the brain out. /insane laugh
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
A sweet romance is not for me
I need electricity
If you wanna make me flip
Hit me with a micro chip
[Chorus]
I'll be a diode, cathode, electrode
Overload, generator, oscillator
Make a circuit with me
Just plug in and go-go-go
I'll be your human dynamo
Signals in my power cord
Impulse on my circuit board
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Keep you degenerate toys away from me, pervert! Whaddya trying to do, make me an addict?!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"When he went deeper into the brain, into the temporal cortex, he could elicit complex perceptions. A patient would say things like, 'I'm sitting on the back porch of my mother's house and she's calling me to dinner.'"
Could this be developed further? How realistic was the perception? I guess that's exactly the question Newsome would like to answer. The mind reels.
And I thought that I was a die hard House fan!
To those who didn't see it, this is a reference to last nights episode, in which he shoots himself up with a drug that causes migranes to prove that an arch-enemy ex-colleauge of his is claiming a drug effictively treats migranes, when it does not. After taking the drug, and proving it doesn't stop the migrane, he drops LSD to overcome the migrane and lots of anti-depressants to overcome the hallucinatory properties of the LSD, so he can get back to saving the life of a burn victim child, whom he suspects has been taking anti-depressants without the kids parents knowledge, in spite of their vehement insistance that they would definately know if he was, and their willingness to bet the kids life on the idea that it was outside the realm of possibility. (Warning: you are about to realize that you have just read an intentional run-on sentence)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
... when you shove electrodes into your own brain:
10. Guess he's never flying anywhere again.
9. Talk about your direct TV... Can he get HBO?
8. Potato powered clock? Feh. Watch this...
7. Wake me when he can control the 12-story Tetris game at Brown U.
6. Testing... 1... 2... *kick* SMASH! Oops. Sorry 'bout that, archbishop.
5. Most of us only use 10% of their brain. With the change of a little knob, his goes to 11.
4. Virtual Viagra 3.1
3. Doesn't support Ogg? Then this whole human brain idea is dead on arrival.
2. Sure, now there'll be a patent fight over the algoritm for whistling....
And the number one disturbing thing about putting electodes in your own brain,
1. Attach a frikken laser and he can rule the world!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Cue animal rights activists.....now.
from TFA:
Getting approval to do something like this would be difficult. Any human experiments in this country are under rigorous scrutiny. Lawyers and administrators at institutions take a dim view of this kind of thing because of the liability issues. And there is a definite slippery slope argument. I might be able to make a case for my own experiment, but it could set precedent for others for whom it would be more risky...Some young graduate student might see it as a way to get ahead in his career and decide to do it.
Would these regulators find it easier to approve of such things if this scientist were an idiot and merely did these things for fun? It seems like even an elementary respect for personal autonomy - which suffices to allow skydiving and elephant training and smoking - ought to allow someone to take risks that are far lower, for rewards that, at least to me, appear rather more noble and inspiring. In fact, I'd assume anyone who pierces their dick or forks their tongue or something faces long-term risks from injury or infection that much higher than anything this man's considering with (his own!!) head under controlled circumstances.
Don't get me wrong...I'm NOT arguing that any of the other things I mentioned ought to be more strictly regulated. I just think we're succumbing a bit too much to mad-scientist paranoia in treating this experiment differently.
fyi, from dictionary.com:
bodkin (bd'kn) n.
- A small, sharply pointed instrument for making holes in fabric or leather.
- A blunt needle for pulling tape or ribbon through a series of loops or a hem.
- A long hairpin, usually with an ornamental head.
- Printing. An awl or pick for extracting letters from set type.
- A dagger or stiletto.
That makes the brain by far the most complicated structure in the known universe.
More complex than a group of monkeys? Or human society? Or how about the sun? Don't get me wrong, the brain is pretty damn complex. But OTOH, direct numerical simulations of the brain should be reaching feasibility in a couple decades (based on current estimates of the brain's pure processing power).
Bill Newsome, we hardly Newya!
You can't handle the truth.
I read the article header to my girlfriend, and her first response was "Sounds just like House last night." :)
Wonderful lines: "Dr Jekyll I presume? They found a half eaten sheep in the zoo last night and the police would like to have a word with you." Or something to that effect.
A big "problem" is a lack of experimental methods. You can't (ethically) tweak someone's brain and see what happens. That's why this guy is doing it to himself. We actually learned more about the human body faster (per research dollar, at least) in the first 2/3-ish of the twentieth century than we have since around the sixties, when medical ethics really began to take shape.
m0nstr42.blogspot.com
Stephen R. Donaldson is the MAN.
There actually does seem to be a 28 gauge, although I've never seen one:
.410 bore, although you don't see many of those anymore either.
http://www.chuckhawks.com/intro_gauges.htm
and CNN says that's what he was using. When you're the VP you probably get free loads from some lobbyist, so finding ammo at WalMart for an unusual gauge isn't a problem.
My grandpappy hunted with a
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1956/fors smann-lecture.html
Stuff like this really makes the internet shine. Just imagine having to go to an university library to look it up...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I'm going to accept at face value the dubious claim that you have a girlfriend and read Slashdot :-)
But seriously, hold on to the girl. She's a keeper. You might be interested in the following site, which is full of great house quotes.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Well, he can't be worse than what we already have, and being able to control him is a plus. If he runs in the next election he's got my vote!
*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000000, 0x0000001a, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
....
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
p4-0300 irql:lf SYSVER:0xf000030e
Dll Base DateStmp - Name
80100000 2e53fe55 - ntoskrl.exe
80010000 2e41884b - Aha154x.sys
8001b000 2e4e7b6b - Scsidisk.sys
fe420000 2e406607 - Floppy.SYS
I did it, and there was no brain damage-amage-amage-amage-amage.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
oh!! please give me the control .. i want to make him dance .. ..
.. so they could study burns ..
maybe just a few jolts for good measure
like the lab techs i saw taking a blowtorch to a pig
I want to see what happens to these scientsits on stormy day. e.g. hit by thunder on the rod...
What if it was a really fancy probe?
Sort-crossing. Category mistake. Eternally popular.
If the brain were simple enough to understand, we would have been too stupid to understand it.
Venkman: Eegon - this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
The probability of having a girlfriend is inversely related to the UID, of course. That said, my own probability is about 3% and rising...
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."