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June 21, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Bionic Brains And What Science Can Foresee


Brain implants. Today in rats, maybe tomorrow in humans. Enhancing our memory. Enhancing our minds.

Template brain used to assist in the study of anatomical brain differences. (National Science Foundation)

A template brain used to assist in the study of anatomical brain differences. (National Science Foundation)

In case you don’t read The Journal of Neural Engineering, here’s the news: scientists have created a brain implant that restores lost memory function and strengthens recall.

A brain implant. Now, it was in a rat. But it’s proven what can be done.

And offered a glimpse of what’s coming for humans. There is lots of talk about the “bionic brain.” To repair injuries, like Gabby Giffords’.

To supplement brains like yours and mine. Check out this headline: “Intel Wants Brain Implants in Customers Heads by 2020.”

It’s exciting, and it’s scary.

This hour On Point: the latest on the bionic brain.

- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Benedict Carey, science reporter for The New York Times. His story on memory ‘implants’ in rat brains appeared recently in the paper.

Theodore Berger, lead author on the study [PDF here] on brain implants in rats. He is a professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California.

David Eagleman, neuroscientist, best-selling author and columnist. He directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law at Baylor College of Medicine at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine and author of “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain,” “Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia” and the forthcoming book, “LiveWired.”

 
  • cole b

    Anumber of indifiduals have total recall,able to access all memorized information from the early years of their tives.  This ability may be related to the same area that results in memory loss in individuals with brain injury.

  • cole b

    Anumber of indifiduals have total recall,able to access all memorized information from the early years of their tives.  This ability may be related to the same area that results in memory loss in individuals with brain injury.

  • Brennan511

    This “limitless” potential sounds like it has a destruction code built in [yes master]. But if a few persons do receive experimental units, do we contain them or send them into the world? or of course like the movies, do they escape… like blade runner? Are there political agendas? or could “they” help extract & translate existing intellectual  data… that may be rusting on the vine, out of reach of mere humans [ detect? mental maniac's l.o.l].

  • Cory

    I’d rather see these resources and brilliant minds solve the world’s existing problems instead of endeavoring to create new ones.  My impression is that the human brain still isn’t all that well understood, so I guess I’m not so comfortable with this sort of “tinkering”.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Nothing that I know of, is inherently ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’.  This research, and the uses, can go either way.  Guns, for example, are used more for self-defense, and have saved more lives, than they have been used criminally to take.  Safeguards, and oversight, with appropriate penalties, need to be implemented FIRST.  Many examples exist, of technology or research needing good governance installed first, to avoid severe damage.

    • Anonymous

      @fa0bc679d4cba4c097672d7e5c15d631:disqus I assume you take your gun use statistics from the 1993 study by Gary Kleck. If so, you should know that other researchers have found some methodological problems with his study (the complaint of a small sample size is NOT valid); please see David Hemenway’s study for a full discussion:

      Hemenway, D., D. Azrael, M. Miller (2000). “Gun use in the United States: results from two national surveys”. Injury Prevention 6 (4): 263–267.doi:10.1136/ip.6.4.263. PMC 1730664. PMID 11144624.

      and his article in the American Statistical Association magazine,

      Hemenway, D. (1997). “The Myth of Millions of Self-Defense Gun Uses: A Case Study of Survey Overestimates of Rare Events,” Chance, Vol.10 No.3. [http://www.amstat.org/publications/chance/articleIndex.cfm ]

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Don,   Take six lineman-sized guys with baseball bats, give them the choice of attacking another lineman-sized guy with a baseball bat, or an 80 year old petite lady with a 9-mm, that evidently knows how to use it?  The knowledge, or suspicion that a potential victim is armed, is a deterrent, not always documented.  I know of many people, that have stated they were potential victims, until they convinced the perpetrator wannabes, that odds were more even.
             I had heard of such a study, not sure if it was the one you quoted.  Even one life saved by gun  posession, if it is my family member, or a good person, is enough to convince me.  Criminals will be criminals, and will find a way.   I advocate for those less-able, and the law-abiding, that would be greatly disadvantaged, where guns are outlawed.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Don,   I didn’t point out that, either way, the studies do not prove that guns are not evil, just can be used for evil.

        • GunS

          Guns dont,kill. People,kill.

  • http://richardsnotes.org Richard

    It would be nice to reverse what many of us are starting to go through as we age: weaker, more fragile short term memories.

    It really is a drag to go down to the basement for more paper towels and then on the way down lose track of why I’m going or remember another thing to get and forget the paper towels.On the other hand, maybe there’s an evolutionary reason we lose memories; we’re overloaded and we need a way to make room for more important stuff.Seems to me I used to be able to remember the important stuff AND the paper towels. Of course, I’m not sure I can really remember a time when I could remember.Yeah, I’d love a chip or drug to reverse this. Bring it on.

    By the way, one of my favorite onPoint shows of all time was Tom interviewing David Eagleman on his book Sum.

    http://onpoint.wbur.org/2009/02/27/envisioning-the-afterlife

    What an incredible imagination David Eagleman has, that show was spectacular (if I remember correctly).

  • Ronald Johnson

    Vivisection is cruel, barbaric and primitive. Alternatives are available and should be developed. Our responsibility as humans is to protect animals, not exploit, torture and kill them. “I
    abhor vivisection with my whole soul.  All the scientific discoveries
    stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.”  ~Mahatma
    Gandhi

  • Freeman

    Tom;
           Fantasy; yeah we appreciate what Scienctist and Doctors do for us. What are you going to do about “our planet”; accelerated death spiral of the Oceans,global warming, and fires burning all over the place.
    When will medicine “get it”; Death is an inevitability, get over it.
            

  • Anonymous

    Great topic. Another recently published in New Scientist talks about how scientist have placed electrodes on the surface of the brain in the Wernicke’s area using electrocortiography techniques. Wernicke’s area is the center where your ‘inner voice’ is formed. Scientists are tantalizing close to listening knowing the contents of your inner voice.

    The potential for thought to thought communications, learning, privacy issues, social networking, psychotherapy will soon reach a paradigm shift.

  • Anonymous

    Great topic. Another recently published in New Scientist talks about how scientist have placed electrodes on the surface of the brain in the Wernicke’s area using electrocortiography techniques. Wernicke’s area is the center where your ‘inner voice’ is formed. Scientists are tantalizing close to listening knowing the contents of your inner voice.

    The potential for thought to thought communications, learning, privacy issues, social networking, psychotherapy will soon reach a paradigm shift.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    How could you restore the actual memory of someone with Alzheimers, or other memory-loss diseases, or trauma victims?  If not the actual memory, how much tinkering is allowed?  (give an abuser a more docile memory, or a Stepford Wife scenario?  What happens when actual memory surfaces, and conflicts with implanted memory?  Much needs to be considered from the secular moral point of view, and standards agreed on beforehand.

  • Ellen Dibble

    Anyone who has experienced a significant brain wipe-out knows full well that we are constantly shaping our own brains.  We exercise them and feed them, sometimes compulsively, sometimes by default. But if we could input some of that without it being part of our lives, our choices, how is that enhancement?
        The fact is, a lot of our mental disabilities are actually our mental strengths, if that makes any sense.  I read it in AARP so it must be true.  Our capacity to forget, for instance, contributes to our ability to extrapolate.  Something like that.
       However, if I were traveling to Mars, without the normal inputs to keep my brain in shape, I would want a lot of inplants.

  • Ed053

    I hope you discuss the possibility of hacking!  Could someone nearby access your wireless system–maybe to implant a false memory?

  • Jdsmith02115

    I’m read Kurzweil’s “The Singularity” now. He discusses all of these emerging technologies you speak of and their impact on human societies in the VERY near future!!

  • Bobl1234

    I called as a person who has Parkinson’s.  I wonder what your guests have to say about Chinese practices NOW; like Chi Gong and Tai-Chi.

  • Mogl

    What about spy craft.  The mole would not have to worry about transferring every detail and nuance.  The entire event/conversation could be transferred to another operative in perfect detail, maybe in real time.

    Or for law enforcement:  no need for a wire.

    • Mogl

      What about espionage.  Could a spy merely view a document or a file … and later transfer it perfectly?

  • Soli

    I wonder if anyone reading these comments is familiar with the comic series The Invisibles. All I can think of during the discussion is Ragged Robin.
    (For those unaware, she was a major character in the series who had an implant to enhance latent psychic ability.)

    • ME

      That is an amazing series.

      • ME

        Sorry. I was thinking of another series.

  • Rick in Virginia

    If “knowledge” could be downloaded to the brain, wouldn’t that completely change the definition of one’s sense of “reality”???

    • Anonymous

      Physics have been wrestling with this question since the invention of quantum physics.  Mathematicians have had an on-going debate on what is space long before.  Think of the debates between Newton and Leibniz on the nature of space.  Whereas Newton thought that space was something real and ‘out there’, Leibniz thought of it as space as just a convenient relationship among objects.  Ofcourse, philosophers have been pondering this question the longest in the West.  Think of Socrates/Plato and the allegory of the caves.

      And if you read the text of the advaita vedantics and of buddhism, you’ll have realized that the eastern mystics have already figured it all out before the west started to think about it.  Note, I am not trying to interject religion into your question, the vedantas and buddhism are incorrectly labeled as religion in the west and by it’s pedestrian practitioners, event though they are not.  In fact, they know of things that are even more radical than the west has imagined, including movies like the Matrix.  

      Anyways, if you really have a keen interest in what is reality, I would recommend reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and also a book on the development of non-Euclidean geometry.  Or start with the book ‘The Practice of Mahamudra’.

  • Shag9y

    Tom said, “Salad marketing is not as fierce (as Twinkie marketing).”  Very interesting assumptions, not about the marketing, but about the food type.  Why is salad marketing not fierce?  It’s because food itself is fierce.  Twinkies are a fierce food.  So are Pop Tarts, which were dropped by the millions on the people of Afghanistan early in the war.  We don’t drop salad as a part of war.  Salad is peaceful.  Brain control comes from the same folks who brought us the Twinkie, which is why Tom made that comment, knowing who is behind food control are the same ones behind medicine and the pursuit of war. 

  • Shag9y

    This discussion focussed on the brain as being in the HEAD, but do note that the GUT is home to more neural brain-type cells than the head possesses.  Implication is that science can’t isolate the brain in a jar and have it “experience” without the gut.  Notice that the fetus begins as a brain AND a gut.  The reason for this is because humans have capacity for IMAGINATION, which is the interaction between head and gut, mind and emotion.  Seratonins and dopamines release from the GUT, hello!  Western medicine is currently STATIC in its progress in “wars” on disease for this very reason, viewing life possible as a brain is a jar.  Laughable.  The human is a combination of planes, rational, yes, emotional, yes, and creative, yes, nothing a brain in a jar could do without the rest of the core body.

  • http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

    It will take another 25 years before mankind can see the full potential of Brain implants or making Grey hair black again. There is a possibility that I will see these invention in my life time. Just like the cell phone from the 90s Micro-tac and to the 2011 Smart Phones.

  • Brother Stein

    Regarding transferring consciousness to silicon:
    What happens when the servers are subject to a virus attack?
    What happens when ones virtual consciousness is spammed?

    • Modavations

      I shutter to think.

  • Jason Takenouchi

    how much could this cure?autism,catatonic,repair a brain dead person?could someone read your mind or control your thoughts by hacking in to the new brain?

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  • RM Guy

    This is provacative programming, but doesn’t really address the questions we can discuss intelligently.  Brain implants?  Neuroscience?  WTF??  There must be all of 1 or 2 thousand people in the world who can talk about this stuff.  Everything else may as well be a Fox News call-in, and all the intelligence that implies.

    Most of this medical science is beyond most of us, and it seems that we’re left with arguments about morality, legality, blah, blah.  All of which are significant, but not relevant to what we hope to explore today.  The other part will come.

  • baltimoremarilyn

    at least some of the comments on tonight’s show make the implicit assumptions that remembering, having a good memory and learning effortlessly or instantly are desirable, even highly desirable.

    as a dyslexic i have had serious memory problems all my life. on a daily basis i contend with black holes where fond memories used to reside. but the forgetting is far more a bles sing than it is a problem.

    in the simplest and most routine ways i often forget irksome, difficult and painful experiences with amazing facility. my mind and moods can be delightfully light without those memories. the forgetting, in part, makes me a very positive soul.

    more importantly, however, for me is that my creativity is rooted in the forgetfulness. each night when others are processing memories to make them more accessible, my memories float untethered or persist tenuously. losing so many of my memories and so much of what i might know of myself means that each day i begin with great freshness. without a knack for habits, i live a sweetly conscious albeit often meandering existence. i must think about every mundane aspect of life and recreate each day the necessary patterns of existence, from basic hygiene to diet to work. starting from scratch each day means the paths i take are never the same.

    that is creativity.

    people with excellent memories and those who learn effortlessly as well as flawlessly have significant stakes in their memories. perhaps way too much to look to the future or to dissociate enough from memories not to remain bound by them. genuinely creative people need to free themselves or are naturally free to think at times utterly without the burden of memories.

  • Denny N Blake

    From Nashville
    I’m appalled that, as much as I was able to listen to yesterday, that there was no mention, or compassion, for the rats used in scientific research.  I think that it’s fairly established, now, that medical research can be done without the use of REAL, LIVE animals.  Improvements in medical treatment for humans are great and promising, but not at the expense of the pain, cruelty, and staggering suffering of all research animals.  Where are the ethicists in this arena??????

  • goodstuff123

    This is awesome!!!!  To infinity and beyond! 

  • The Architect

    Cyborgs will exist before A.I.  Then people will see that all we are is biological machines…

    • Fred

      Too kool! Can’t wait!

  • Badboy_trey16

    This is seriously disturbing to read. I can’t even fathom why someone would want to enhance their brain in such an unnatural way. The length people go to gain some sort of edge mentally or physically is beyond me.

  • Leslie Wong42

    The movie Brainstorm is now becomming a reality

  • Denny Blake

    Denny from Nashville.  I did want to add to my comment yeserday, a heartfelt “thankyou” to the caller named “Jamie(?)”  He shared his experience with his brother who suffered from Lou Gerhig’s disease and who, ultimately, died when his ventilator malfunctioned.  Thank you and your brother for the bravery, widsom, and love that it sounds like you two shared, and, also for the compassion that shone through your voice when you talked about your brother’s experience.  Your call was profoundly moving.

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