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Scientist to Implant Electrode in His Own Brain?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the self-sacrifice-for-science dept.

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."

12 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome, by IDontAgreeWithYou · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've been looking for a remote controlled neuroscientist for years!!!

    --
    Finding other idiots on /. that agree with your opinion doesn't make it any less stupid.
  2. Darwin award? by slavemowgli · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmm, I wonder how likely it is that he'll end up with a Darwin award...

    --
    quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
  3. Monkeys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Monkeys by hkgroove · · Score: 5, Funny

      The lines between this article and The Far Side are getting pretty blurry.

    2. Re:Monkeys by halltk1983 · · Score: 5, Funny

      We have enough studies already on the differences between women and men...

      --
      Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
    3. Re:Monkeys by Mr.+Bad+Example · · Score: 5, Funny

      > Hey, I can get a monkey to respond differently to its environment by sending electric shocks to any part of its anatomy,

      Or as scientists call it, the Peter Gabriel Principle.

  4. We need to be careful by amstrad · · Score: 5, Funny

    I mean, what will happen when the implant is turned on and the neuroscientist becomes self-aware?

  5. And from this we have come to the conclusion... by flickwipe · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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

  6. Re:Hardcore. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    there are no nerves in the brain

    Speak for yourself, buddy...

    (I think you mean there are no sensory nerves...)

  7. Isaac Newton did similar by Noel+Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    . implicit all IIRC IM*HO £0.02 YM?V ;-) ...
  8. Will he get fired? by Coppit · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The guy who gave himself a heart catheter got fired for it. From A History of Cardiac Catheterization:

    In 1929, a German surgical trainee, Werner Forssmann, experimented on a human cadaver and realized how easy it was to guide a urological catheter from an arm vein into the right atrium. He went so far as to dissect the veins of his own forearm and guide a urological catheter into his right atrium using fluoroscopic control and a mirror. With the catheter in place, he walked to the x-ray room with no ill effects to have his chest x-rayed. This made Forssmann the first to document right heart catheterization in humans using radiographic techniques. In return, he was fired from his position at the hospital and won the Nobel Prize in 1956.
    Yikes! I wonder if during his Nobel acceptance he gave the hospital the finger. ;)
  9. can we even scientifically study consciousness? by mrpeebles · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.