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Brain Implant Can Automatically Adjust Dopamine Levels (ieee.org)

Reader Wave723 writes about an implantable chip that is able to detect and adjust dopamine levels in mice brains. Created by researchers at Case Western Reserve University, the chip, unlike other brain implants, traces the neurotransmitter instead of relying on electrical signals. Wave723 elaborates: This brain implant is a chip that can automatically sense dopamine levels through an electrode that measures the flow of the neurotransmitter through the brain and pH levels. An algorithm within the device calculates whether dopamine levels are within a predetermined range, and if not, the chip sends an electrical impulse to stimulate neurons to produce more. Someday, it might help patients with a variety of disorders including addiction, or Parkinson's disease though a lot more research is needed to be done on neurotransmitter levels in order to reach that point.

35 comments

  1. Syndicate / Satellite Reign by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 2

    I'm familiar with this plot line, and it doesn't end well for humanity.

    --
    Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    1. Re:Syndicate / Satellite Reign by OpenSourced · · Score: 2

      Yes, I was going to say the same. That's one step closer to the wireheads distopya.

      --
      Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
    2. Re:Syndicate / Satellite Reign by rsborg · · Score: 1

      Yes, I was going to say the same. That's one step closer to the wireheads distopya.

      There's the sad wireheads dystopia and then the dopamine-fueled enforcers problem... since high dopamine levels increase likelihood of aggression:
      http://www.autismwebsite.com/c...

      I mean, what happens when the Police/Military can just wire up the dopamine to when they want their troops to kill kill kill?

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  2. The Terminal Man by gti_guy · · Score: 1

    I remember reading that book back in the seventies.

    1. Re:The Terminal Man by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      We are more and more becoming cyborgs, even though today we disconnect us mostly when we enter our beds.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:The Terminal Man by OutOnARock · · Score: 1

      Yeah....the guy learns how to stimulate various pleasure centers at will....i remember that book as well.

  3. eCrack by avandesande · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hacks for your mandatory implant

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism
  4. Louis Wu by nospam007 · · Score: 2

    ...and the other wireheads are waiting for it.

  5. Well... by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    Being able to intelligently remodel the risk-reward path could be the biggest step forward for humanity since the development of antibiotics. We're not there yet, but this is a big step.

    Also creepy, though. Tie it to an external trigger and you could use it to reward allegiance to a particular political party, or to the state, or to betraying the state, or to almost anything.

    1. Re:Well... by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Yes we can implant these in criminals and when their ai monitor detects poor behavior shut off their dopamine. Or schoolchildren.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re: Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i would advise implant it in workers. Give a shot for hard work and double for weekend/overtime. No more unhappy employees

    3. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I had no idea that we were supplying well behaved criminals with schoolchildren. When did this come into practice and what would criminals want with schoolchildren in the first place?

    4. Re:Well... by jimbob6 · · Score: 1

      Being able to intelligently remodel the risk-reward path could be the biggest step forward for humanity since the development of antibiotics. We're not there yet, but this is a big step.

      That depends on what you call a step forward.
      Redesigning the human condition on a more or less morally bankrupt social philosophy sounds more like a path to extinction to me.
      Evolution has done a pretty good job at creating a risk reward model that keeps pushing us in the right direction.
      Panic, fear, anger, aggression, hatred and sorrow are the most essential parts of the human thought process.
      We are supposed to be pissed we have shitty leaders. We are supposed to be paranoid that the government is constantly spying on us.
      We are supposed to be worried that that bitch from HR is talking shit behind our back.
      I don't believe the social philosophy we are meant to be happy all the time.
      Some times I'm depressed because there are things that suck.

    5. Re: Well... by rsborg · · Score: 1

      i would advise implant it in workers. Give a shot for hard work and double for weekend/overtime. No more unhappy employees

      Obligatory SMAC:
      http://alphacentauri2.info/wik...

      Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?

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      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    6. Re:Well... by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

      Evolution has done a pretty good job at creating a risk reward model that keeps pushing us in the right direction.

      Sure. And then you have World War 2, the Cold War, Donald Trump, ISIS, and Global Warming. Not to mention mass domestic violence, alcoholism, and substance abuse. Our technology and even human relationships already far exceed our collective wisdom.

    7. Re:Well... by SNRatio · · Score: 1

      a chip that can automatically sense dopamine levels through an electrode that measures the flow of the neurotransmitter through the brain

      This is a bit like accidentally saying "we gave antidepressants to Chicago" instead of "we gave antidepressants to a person in Chicago". Lots of different regions in the brain, not one.

  6. I remember the Wire... by WheezyJoe · · Score: 1

    No, not the TV show. In The Ringworld Engineers, Larry Niven proposes a future where we can get a wire put in our heads to "tickle" the pleasure center of our brains whenever we want. The only danger, besides it being habit-forming, is that a wirehead can starve to death being so euphoric all the time, so the power supply (it literally plugs into a socket on the skull) is typically rigged with a timer.

    Ain't the future gonna be grand?

    --
    Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
  7. I LOVE TPS REPORTS!!! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Coming Fall 2016 : Cookie Clicker : APOCALYPSE

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:I LOVE TPS REPORTS!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Donald trump's wonderful wife will bake cookie ICBMs that will open the big big door to the cookie universe. Legally.

  8. Looking forward by NotInHere · · Score: 1

    I'm looking forward to the "free dopamine brain implant" offerings where you get free dopamine for the first ten days for the month, and after that you have to pay for it.

  9. Let me fix that for you: by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Someday, it might help governments with a variety of undesirables including protestors, or others critical of the government, to keep the populace under control remotely, though a lot more research is needed to be done on neurotransmitter levels in order to reach that point.

    Fuck you, leave our gods-be-damned neurotransmitters alone!

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  10. Soma is your friend! Trust the computer! by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Taking your meds is important, Citizen!

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  11. Cheaper than crack by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1

    This could potentially destroy the international drug trade. I know it's not designed for created highs, but it could most certainly be used for that.

    1. Re:Cheaper than crack by avandesande · · Score: 1

      I guess some positive outcomes could be imagined, as long as they are under the control of the implantee.... If you want to get in shape
      Reduce reward for eating
      Increase reward for exercise

      Unfortunately though its hard to see how people would use this with moderation, lots of people killing themselves trying to become elite athletes, musicians and academics.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
  12. Any effect on SPD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would this work for sensory processing disorders? Honestly, being a "superhero" fucking sucks. I may have more perception, intelligence, abilities, and better reflexes than the general population but the anxiety from sensory overload is unbearable and will eventually lead to my early death. I would rather be average and happy than awesome and dead.

    1. Re:Any effect on SPD? by avandesande · · Score: 1

      I believe there is a medication for this in Colorado.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:Any effect on SPD? by rsborg · · Score: 1

      I believe there is a medication for this in Colorado.

      Don't forget Washington. Though I hear the treatment in CO is better quality.

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      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  13. commentsubjectsaredumb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Adjusts, or increases? I'm sure it takes little imagination to find use cases for deliberately suppressed dopamine. Make doughnuts unappealing, or treat an addiction.

  14. I should ... by PPH · · Score: 2

    ... point out the obvious problems with this. But I feel strangely at ease with the whole concept.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  15. Yup. Real mind control. by TheNarrator · · Score: 2

    I hate to break it to you guys, but this kind of thing is real mind control, and we'll even like it. Brain chemistry IS literally reality. It's where the rubber hits the road. We'll put these implants in people and ask them if they are happy with the chip and they'll say they are if the chip generates dopamine for them.

    I can see a future where we put people in solitary confinement in a box that they can't stand up in and as long as they get the dopamine from their chip they'll prefer it there vs anywhere else. We'll even call it humane.

  16. Well its about time. by jimbob6 · · Score: 1

    Finally! Now Foxconn can take down those suicide nets.

  17. Dr. Peter Breggin MD by strstr · · Score: 1

    my friend Dr. Peter Breggin says all these implants are doing is lobotomizing the brain. there isn't anybody who will seriously want to use these devices, especially by force, if they value their brains integrity. the same issue applies to pharmaceutical drugs.

    our government tests implants on people in the 1960s on, and they were banned in Kaimowitz versus Michigan as a 1st amendment violation in the 1970s because they impaired a persons ability to generate free speech. the court rules citizens didn't even have the ability to consent to the devices, and they couldn't be implanted by force as the government was doing back then. psychosurgery, lobotomy, and implants/electro stimulator devices were banned.

    fuck medical/military/mind conrol science!

    but wait, implants are nothing, they have a grid of satellites and radar interfacing with everyone's brains secretly. more info and patents @ http://www.drrobertduncan.com/ (look for Peter Breggin's clip talking about DARPA/mind control implants/etc)

    Todd Giffen
    503-967-5202
    http://www.obamasweapon.com/

    1. Re:Dr. Peter Breggin MD by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      On the flip side, life imprisonment and the death penalty. So tame a wild individual or lock them up or kill them. So breaking into someone's house, assaulting people, kidnapping them at gun point and locking them up in a cage until demands are met, are also bad but not so bad when it was the police acting with a search warrant based upon substantive evidence, yet to be proven, of criminal activity. So post prosecution and substation of evidence, a new kind of home detention and pacification. Not to say the rights of citizens should not be substantially tightened to prevent the worst kind of abuses and mass enslavement.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Dr. Peter Breggin MD by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

      Your brain has already been lobotomised, that much is clear.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.