Neurocomputing Makes Headway

SuperguyA1 writes "Salon is running this almost unbelievable story on "Thought Activated Computing". This was the one thing I always wanted to see that I figured wouldn't be possible in my lifetime. " Really, really amazing work being done - makes me happy to be alive right now and able to see stuff like this. Currently the technology is being used to help paralyzed people now and the possibilites in the future are endless.

Comments

look out

[habib23]

Thought activated computing? Let's hope they turn logging off...

Re:Mutability of the brain?

[Anonymous Coward]

I figured someone on slashdot might know the answer to this.

Well, I'll give it a shot...I have a BA in Anthropology, and my advisor was one of the best known physical anthropologists/neuroanatomists in the US, so I heard a fair bit about brains in college.

How predetermined is out number of senses and limbs?

Rather! After all, your genes determine both your body structure and your brain anatomy. HOWEVER...the brain is a surprisingly plastic thing, and is capable of "reprogramming itself", so to speak, to deal with new/different situations and inputs.

If I was to implant some device like this into my brain would it always a) feel unnatural b) necesserily interfere with the movement of my arm or c) eventually behave entierly unconciously just like the movement of my arm does now.

Well, it's a little hard to say exactly. It would probably feel unnatural and forced at first - think of trying to write with your 'weak' hand, or of making fine motions with your toes - but like those examples, it would probably become easier, even natural, with practice.

Is the same true of senses? If I attached a little I/O port into my brain would it eventually be integrated as a 6th sense or are out brains to preprogramed for this to happen?

Again, it's difficult to say, since we've never had to deal with it before. My guess is that you would eventually be able to deal with it, but it's far from a sure thing. There have been experiments in which people have been fitted with goggles which distorted their vision; at first they find it very disorienting, but they learn to function perfectly, compensating for the distortions on the fly. On the other hand, there was a case in which a man blind almost from birth had his sight restored, and (unlike the movies, in which he'd jump up crying "I can see! I can see!") it took him a lot of effort to make sense of what he was seeing, as his brain just wasn't wired for visual input anymore.

Would the answers be differnt is we implanted the devices in utero?

Quite possibly. See above for the story about the man who had his sight restored. There have also been experiments in which animals have had their eyes covered for the first few months of life; when their sight is restored, they really seem not to be able to learn to see. The brain is much more malleable at an early age - check out how well adjusted people are who were born without hands versus those who lost them later.

Why is it scary?

[Crutcher]

I don't understand the problem people have with the idea of brain controlled machinery. Doesn't anyone remember being a kid and honestly trying out your *psychic* powers? Trying to make people here your thoughts, or change the channel, or drive an RC car? I mean, cummon! I want interfaces that let me have all the functionality of a digital phone, but without any handset. I want to just will the damn channel to change, I want my car to unlock and turn itself on because I wanted it to from halfway accross the parking lot. I want to never have to wonder about dates or appointments or where someone is (that is in mutal contact with me, and thus is letting me have such info) again. I dont want to drive my car, I want to *BE* my car, and my plane, and my boat, and the surgical impliments that I use to work on a patient (IANAD), I want to walk the web internaly, not muck arround with a damn mouse and keyboard. And every kid on the planet is born wanting that, but some forget it as the grow up. Some one needs to remind this uptight doctor that he's not to old to fly, give him some fairy dust, and lock him in a room with the Hawaiian Tropic Swimsuit Team until he can come up with some happy thoughts.
-Crutcher

Re:Mutability of the brain?

[JimMcCusker]

How predetermined is out number of senses and limbs? If I was to implant some device like this into my brain would it always a) feel unnatural b) necesserily interfere with the movement of my arm or c) eventually behave entierly unconciously just like the movement of my arm does now.

That is a really interesting question. The short of it is, we don't know yet. The long of it is that new senses cannot be imprinted into the structure of the brain. Where would you plug it? Despite what popular culture says about people only using 10% of their brain, (that was years ago when no one knew what 90% of the brain did) every single neuron in the brain has some sort of purpose. The ones that don't will kill themselves off. (this is, in fact, a learning process) So there is no where to "plug" in a new sense or motor command. The whole thing is so interconnected, to get a new I/O in would require growing new neurons (lots and lots of new neurons) and would be very disconcerting, to say the least. Motor skills happen all over the brain, in the cortex, the thalamus, and in the cerebellum.

That said, we could read and write over existing senses/motor commands very easily. But the problem with that is control. You'd need (eventually) to grow new connections to control whether or not the device should be paid attention to. But that's mainly a training problem.

Would the answers be differnt is we implanted the devices in utero?

That is an even more interesting question than your first. The flip side of that is this: does a person who has always been blind not see anything or simply not see period? Actually, anyone out there who knows/is a congenitally blind person? Which is it? The brain may wire itself up for a new modality, but it may not know to look for it. It would be a matter of laying down the proper chemical paths to get the new neurons to connect up with the device. That's what's needed for ennervation of muscles and sensory organs (the skin, for example).

Re:Yikes!

[PG13]

I believe that the trophic factor (encourages nueral development around the implant) is what is proprietary. It was not at all clear from the article that the scientist involved held the patent to the trophic substance. The implant is an extremly simple broadcaster of nueral activity.

This kind of opposition to human improvments is as pervasive as it is strange. In the US at least their is some sort of weird moral structure that says it is okay to "fix defects" but not to improve healthy people. These sorts of attitudes seem to be holding back research a great deal. What if their were no quadrapalegics to benifit from this sort of technology then it might never have been developed. Perhaps without this strange restriction we would have drugs improving the memory and intelligence of the population as a whole.

Ba-humbug, I say!

[kinesis]

A perspective from a grumpy old man...

In my day we didn't have any of these fancy "punch cards". We pulled giant levers and watched big iron gears grind tediously away. It took days to do a simple multipication and the answer was usually wrong. That's the way it was, and we liked it! We loved it!

Why I remember getting my arm stuck in an adding machine. Crushed every bone in my hand. That's how real men compute! You can have your advanced "vacuum tubes" and "elec-tricty".

Bah-humbug, I say! Any computer that doesn't need to be oiled is a devil-machine!

Now they tell me they've got fancy games you can play on these computers. When I was your age, the engineers played "touch the red-hot spinning metal disc". And we liked it! We loved it!

Bah.