Post by Mech on Dec 12, 2004 20:21:46 GMT -5
MIND CONTROL FOR THE FUTURE
Microchips Create Memories in Brain
Oct 29, 2004 DOJgov.net Newswire
Scientists are now working on microchip implant technology that can create artificial memories.
Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus, an area of the brain known for creating memories. If successful, the implant could replace its biological counterpart, in the hope that people who suffer from memory disorders can store new memories.
The six teams involved in the multi-laboratory effort, including USC, the University of Kentucky and Wake Forest University, have been working together on different components of the neural prosthetic for nearly a decade. Results of their efforts were just presented at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego.
Research using slices of rat brain indicates the chip functions with 95 percent accuracy.
"It's a new direction in neural prosthesis," said Howard Eichenbaum, director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurobiology at Boston University. "The Berger enterprise is ambitious, aiming to provide a prosthesis for memory. The need is high, because of the prevalence of memory disorder in aging and disease associated with loss of function in the hippocampus."
Positive aspects of this new technology involve forming long-term memories to recognize a new face, or remembering a telephone number or directions to a new location, emulating the hippocampus. This part of the brain doesn't store long-term memories, but re-encodes short-term memory so it can be stored as long-term memory.
It's the area that's often damaged as a result of head trauma, stroke, epilepsy and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
"If you can figure out how the inputs are transformed, then you do have a prosthesis. Then I could put that into somebody's brain to replace it, and I don't care what they look at -- I've replaced the damaged hippocampus with the electronic one, and it's going to transform inputs into outputs just like the cells of the biological hippocampus."
Dr. John J. Granacki, director of the Advanced Systems Division at USC, has been working on translating these mathematical functions onto a microchip. The resulting chip is designed to simulate the processing of biological neurons in the slice of rat hippocampus that would accept electrical impulses, process them and send on. The researchers say the microchip is 95 percent accurate.
"If you were looking at the output right now, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the biological hippocampus and the microchip hippocampus," Berger said. "It looks like it's working."
The team next plans to work with live rats that are moving around and learning, and will study monkeys later.
"We will attempt to adapt the artificial hippocampus to the live animal and then show that the animal's performance -- dependent in these tasks on an intact hippocampus -- will not be compromised when the device is in place and we temporarily interrupt the normal function of the hippocampus," said Sam A. Deadwyler, "thus allowing the neuro-prosthetic device to take over that normal function." Deadwyler, a professor at Wake Forest University, is working on measuring the hippocampal neuron activity in live rats and monkeys.
While this new technology holds potentially great promise for neurologically impaired patients, it does have a disturbing downside for potential abuse. Since memories determine response, the eventual implanting of false memories now becomes a future reality.
One can speculate that it could begin by eliminating prisons by reworking memories of convicts to make them "good" citizens. It can then be expanded into the ultimate government tool for mind control in the mollified society.
The team expects it will take two to three years to develop the mathematical models for the hippocampus of a live, active rat and translate them onto a microchip, and seven or eight years for a monkey. They hope to apply this approach to clinical applications within 10 years. If everything goes well, they anticipate seeing an artificial human hippocampus, potentially usable for a variety of clinical disorders, in 15 years. If used improperly by self-serving government, its pathology is positively frightening.
Microchips Create Memories in Brain
Oct 29, 2004 DOJgov.net Newswire
Scientists are now working on microchip implant technology that can create artificial memories.
Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus, an area of the brain known for creating memories. If successful, the implant could replace its biological counterpart, in the hope that people who suffer from memory disorders can store new memories.
The six teams involved in the multi-laboratory effort, including USC, the University of Kentucky and Wake Forest University, have been working together on different components of the neural prosthetic for nearly a decade. Results of their efforts were just presented at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego.
Research using slices of rat brain indicates the chip functions with 95 percent accuracy.
"It's a new direction in neural prosthesis," said Howard Eichenbaum, director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurobiology at Boston University. "The Berger enterprise is ambitious, aiming to provide a prosthesis for memory. The need is high, because of the prevalence of memory disorder in aging and disease associated with loss of function in the hippocampus."
Positive aspects of this new technology involve forming long-term memories to recognize a new face, or remembering a telephone number or directions to a new location, emulating the hippocampus. This part of the brain doesn't store long-term memories, but re-encodes short-term memory so it can be stored as long-term memory.
It's the area that's often damaged as a result of head trauma, stroke, epilepsy and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
"If you can figure out how the inputs are transformed, then you do have a prosthesis. Then I could put that into somebody's brain to replace it, and I don't care what they look at -- I've replaced the damaged hippocampus with the electronic one, and it's going to transform inputs into outputs just like the cells of the biological hippocampus."
Dr. John J. Granacki, director of the Advanced Systems Division at USC, has been working on translating these mathematical functions onto a microchip. The resulting chip is designed to simulate the processing of biological neurons in the slice of rat hippocampus that would accept electrical impulses, process them and send on. The researchers say the microchip is 95 percent accurate.
"If you were looking at the output right now, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the biological hippocampus and the microchip hippocampus," Berger said. "It looks like it's working."
The team next plans to work with live rats that are moving around and learning, and will study monkeys later.
"We will attempt to adapt the artificial hippocampus to the live animal and then show that the animal's performance -- dependent in these tasks on an intact hippocampus -- will not be compromised when the device is in place and we temporarily interrupt the normal function of the hippocampus," said Sam A. Deadwyler, "thus allowing the neuro-prosthetic device to take over that normal function." Deadwyler, a professor at Wake Forest University, is working on measuring the hippocampal neuron activity in live rats and monkeys.
While this new technology holds potentially great promise for neurologically impaired patients, it does have a disturbing downside for potential abuse. Since memories determine response, the eventual implanting of false memories now becomes a future reality.
One can speculate that it could begin by eliminating prisons by reworking memories of convicts to make them "good" citizens. It can then be expanded into the ultimate government tool for mind control in the mollified society.
The team expects it will take two to three years to develop the mathematical models for the hippocampus of a live, active rat and translate them onto a microchip, and seven or eight years for a monkey. They hope to apply this approach to clinical applications within 10 years. If everything goes well, they anticipate seeing an artificial human hippocampus, potentially usable for a variety of clinical disorders, in 15 years. If used improperly by self-serving government, its pathology is positively frightening.