Slashdot Mirror
Brain Heatsink Could Reduce Epilepsy
SimonNight writes "Attaching a heatsink to the brain can reduce the severity of epileptic seizures, Japanese researchers say. They've developed a surgically implanted heat conduit that connects a brain region to a heatsink on the outside of the skull. Seizures get worse when they abnormal activity of brain cells overheats the brain and causes more abnormal firing patterns."
Now we can start overclocking! Break out the red bull and inject-into-the-heart adrenaline.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
...if that means we can start overclocking our brains too.
:)
I can't wait to see people walking around with heat sinks sticking out of their skull. Will they have designer ones?
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Nice diagram. Is that a fan sticking out the side of the guy's head? Should newegg add a new category for 80mm and 100mm brain cooling fans? Or maybe go water cooled for complete silence? The worst that could happen is it leaks and you finally get the shower you're long overdue for...
I'd avoid the liquid nitrogen option at this time.
If the problem seems to be too much heat, why do they try to use difficult to install heatsinks?
Underclocking people! Makes the system way more stable.
Dependency hell? =>
http://img36.picoodle.com/img/img36/9/10/8/f_BalmerFanm_cd5ddbc.jpg
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Interesting developement. An analogous idea was used by Alastair Reynolds in Redemption Ark where one of the characters was genetically modified to have high neural processing speeds and required a 'heatsink' (made of bone and blood vessels) to dissipate the extra heat.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
It is only logical that the heatsink would be the visible component. After all, foil keeps the heat in. Therefore the logical setup is aluminum foil hat with a small gap for heatsink connection, and only aluminum components in the heatsink, thus covering the gap in the aluminum foil hat. That way you could have all the benefits of the aluminum foil hat and a heatsink. Also THEY would never know you had shielding under your heatsink.
We are the Borg...
Maybe. Or, it could be that the higher the temp in your brain, the greater metabolism has effect with neural firing.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yeah, or he would've OD's at 27 and we wouldn't even have E=MC
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
The funny thing is the brain already is liquid-cooled. That liquid being the blood, of course. (Perhaps you were already going for this in your joke, but if so, it'll go over so many heads that I thought it worthwhile to explain it in more depth.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The scary thing is that there are people out there who drill holes in their head for fun. There are claims that it improves your thinking or wellness or something, but I can't help but to think that the people who actually do this aren't the kind of people I want to ask about improving my thinking.
I read the internet for the articles.
Years ago our family had a Brittany Spaniel that started Grand Mal epileptic seizures at around 1 year of age. Phenobarbitol only moderately increase the time period between seizure clusters by a week or so.
;]
While comforting the dog immediately post-seizure one evening, I noticed that he felt warm - his entire body was overheated, as though he'd just come in from a long walk on a hot summer day. To me, the obvious thing to do was to crush 10-15 ice cubes, dump them in a ziploc bag and apply it to the crown of his head. The effect was immediate, and amazing. His anxiety and discomfort disappeared immediately, and the "brain chiller" icepack seemed to lessen the severity of any subsequent cluster seizures, and reduce the number of seizures in a cluster (to almost petit mal effect.)
To me, this feels like another forehead smacking "well, DUH" discovery.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Correct me if I'm wrong (IANAD), but I understood that part of the problem with high fevers was that the heat eventually caused brain damage. I wonder if such a device would have a fever-lowering effect as well. Obviously, we're not going to start installing these in every kid with the flu, but I'm curious if this would work.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.