Neural Prosthetic Acts Like "Bridge" Over Damaged Brain Areas

the_newsbeagle writes "If you can't fix it, go around it. That's the thinking behind an experimental treatment for traumatic brain injury. Using an implanted microdevice, researchers recorded the electrical signals from a sensory region of a rat's brain, skipped over a damaged brain region that typically processes sensory information, and sent the electric signals on to the premotor cortex. This cyborg mouse could then move normally. What this means is that we're getting better at speaking the brain's language — even if we don't understand it, we can mimic it."

Comments

Stop Hitting Yourself!

[WillgasM]

Stop Hitting Yourself! Stop Hitting Yourself!

Bridge Over Damaged Cortex

[mbstone]

When you're dimwitted
Feeling dumb
When circuits in your brain
Make your mind go numb

I'm in your head
When dendrites are dead
And neurons can't be found
Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
Now your mind is sound
Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
Now your mind is sound

When your motor nerves
Trip you on your feet
When your amygdala fails
And can't comfort you

I'll cure your rats
Who can't get fat
When pellets are all around
Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
Now your mind is sound
Here's a bridge over damaged cortex
Now your mind is sound

Re:"...even if we don't understand it..."

[fractoid]

And yet they talk about "even a simple act of perception or cognition". Wow. Yeah cognition is pretty simple, it's not like it's one of the greatest unsolved mysteries we have or anything.

This should make lesion studies more interesting..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Having an implant that can 'patch over' damaged brain areas should make lesion studies more subtle and precise. They can certainly tell us something already, at least in broad strokes, about what functions go where; but it's hard to shake the question of 'if you damage area X, does function Y suffer because area X handles it, or because it depends on connectivity through area X between areas W and Q?' If we have a technique for replacing a functional area with a mere transmission line, that gives us greater ability to differentiate between an area with a functional role in some function and an area with a merely connective role (presumably, there are also areas that are mostly connective; but apply some amount of signal processing between input and output. In the future, maybe we will be able to write arbitrary signal processing filters and patch them in, in software, between the input and the output of this 'bridge' device. That'd be extra neat).

Is Grandma Still Grandma?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I once went to a bioethics panel on computing and neuroscience and asked the ethicist who specialized in rights, "so when we have nanobots that can repair a small portion of damaged neurons in Grandma's brain, we'd probably all view that as a positive development in medical science. And then, as more and more of Grandma's natural neurons fail, the nanobots can take their place, probably before anybody notices symptoms. At some point, nearly all the neurons have failed, and Grandma's brain is mostly nanotech, but nobody on the outside noticed. So, when is Grandma no longer Grandma?"

His answer: "It sounds like you're a philosopher."

Coming generations won't get to answer so coyly. I didn't bother with the follow-up about what happens when the nanobots can duplicate her pattern elsewhere.

Re:Is Grandma Still Grandma?

[Rhywden]

Since every part of our body is replaced on a regular basis by our own cells, we're always not the "same" person at some point in time. The questio should rather be: "Do we view such nanotech as the equivalent to the already existing biological replacements?"

Re:Is Grandma Still Grandma?

[jafiwam]

So, when is Grandma no longer Grandma?"

Define "grandma"

You are asking the wrong question. When you know what "grandma" is, then the question of "when is it not 'grandma' ?" becomes quite obvious. You'll never get to the answer if you keep asking the wrong questions.

If you are a philosopher, you are a poor one.