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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 03/13/2007 : 14:54:38
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I saw a documentary on TV about medical research into cyber prosthetics, and how handicapped people could benefit from technology. For one thing they showed a few people with motorized prosthetic arms and hands with feedback. Electronic sensors picked up nerve impulses that were interpreted by microproceessors to correspond to actions of the prosthetic. Touch-sensitive points in a hand was then fed back to the brain via a pad strapped to the arm.
They did cat(?) MRI-scans of the brain of a woman as she operated her prosthetic immediately after she got it, and it showed brain activity corresponding to much comfusion. But after 6 months of practice and using it, the brain-scans looked just like any other brain while using their real hand.
This woman's brain adapted to using technology as if it was a part of it's own body. When will prosthetics start using human components?
Really fascinating.
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Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 03/13/2007 17:59:52
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 15:47:58 [Permalink]
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Neat field, really. I suspect they were using an MRI machine for watching that woman's brain work in real time.
What I find most intriguing is the possibility (if it is a possibility) of using technology to extend the brain activity itself, seamlessly integrated into brain function. For starters, wouldn't it be nice to be able to call up a good ALU, instead of relying upon memorized tables and having to put the steps onto paper, whenever there's math to do? And imagine installing an upgrade that included whole encyclopedias and wireless access to the internet.
And if these work, the natural neural network logic processes handling consciousness itself might be extended into a new lebensraum. Even if the biological brain later died, our stream of conciousness might survive in a larger, faster, better technological setting. I just hope our own biological brains have done the programming in advance, rather than to have to rely on some commercial OS.
Hacking into someone else's brain might become a crime carrying a life sentence.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 16:14:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Neat field, really. I suspect they were using an MRI machine for watching that woman's brain work in real time.
What I find most intriguing is the possibility (if it is a possibility) of using technology to extend the brain activity itself, seamlessly integrated into brain function. For starters, wouldn't it be nice to be able to call up a good ALU, instead of relying upon memorized tables and having to put the steps onto paper, whenever there's math to do? And imagine installing an upgrade that included whole encyclopedias and wireless access to the internet.
And if these work, the natural neural network logic processes handling consciousness itself might be extended into a new lebensraum. Even if the biological brain later died, our stream of conciousness might survive in a larger, faster, better technological setting. I just hope our own biological brains have done the programming in advance, rather than to have to rely on some commercial OS.
Hacking into someone else's brain might become a crime carrying a life sentence.
It's really exciting to take topics like these and bat them around. Look how far we can take this already, and we're almost certainly just scratching the surface of the possibilities. I remember reading Arthur Clarke's "3001", and thinking that the "Braincap" he proposed in it would be available a lot sooner than a thousand years from now. Good stuff!
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Elvis didn't do no drugs!
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 17:58:43 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by McQ
I remember reading Arthur Clarke's "3001", and thinking that the "Braincap" he proposed in it would be available a lot sooner than a thousand years from now. Good stuff!
It's been a good while since I read it... PLease remind me. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
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McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 19:27:44 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
quote:
Originally posted by McQ
I remember reading Arthur Clarke's "3001", and thinking that the "Braincap" he proposed in it would be available a lot sooner than a thousand years from now. Good stuff!
It's been a good while since I read it... PLease remind me.
Here's a brief summary I found on Wiki:
3001 follows the adventures of Frank Poole, an astronaut who was murdered by HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. His body is discovered after drifting in space for a millennium and brought back to life, exposure to vacuum having preserved him sufficiently for the advanced medical technology of the time to be able to revive him. He then explores the Earth of 3001, notable features of which are the BrainCap, a technology which interfaces computers directly with the human brain, genetically engineered dinosaur servants, and four enormous towers spaced around the equator connected by a spaceport ring in geostationary orbit. Many readers have surmised that this future is intended to represent (at least in part) Clarke's personal vision of Utopia.
and from http://x.i-dat.org/~csem/UNESCO/11/index.html:
The Braincap, as described in Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction classic, 3001: The Final Odyssey, is the ultimate human-computer interface: it connects the brain to a system that is able to read our thoughts and upload new information. It is the educational machine of the third millennium, where the wearer can acquire new skills in minutes that would otherwise take years to master.
All you have to do is keep your head shaved for the tendrils of the braincap to wiggle down through your scalp.
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Elvis didn't do no drugs!
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Vegeta
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
238 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2007 : 23:13:14 [Permalink]
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| ....I know Kung Fu |
What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a pink shirt before?
"I was asked if I would do a similar sketch but focusing on the shortcomings of Islam rather than Christianity. I said, 'No, no I wouldn't. I may be an atheist but I'm not stupid.'" - Steward Lee |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 00:18:28 [Permalink]
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There is a sci-fi writer, Charles Stross, who does some interesting speculation about this kind of thing.
http://www.amazon.com/Accelerando-Charles-Stross/dp/B000EUKQZU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/105-7300874-3343642?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173856205&sr=8-3
People in his world can offload entire processes from their brain into peripheral hardware. One interesting moment when a character loses some of his external processors, and is absolutely lost without them.
As with all such things, the eventual reality will probably be very different, but its cetainly fun to think about the shape of future technology and its impact on human cultures.
Mab asked:
quote:
When will prosthetics start using human components?
Could be sooner than we think.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6573
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 08:07:17 [Permalink]
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| It's stuff like this that got me into computing in the first place (naïve, I know). I dream with the day they'll have microprocessors implanted in brains, and I've seen they already have armors that enhance muscle activity (good for people like me!). Pretty neat stuff. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 13:58:12 [Permalink]
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| I'm pulling for Borg technology. Just take parts from everything you come in contact with and assimilate 'til the cows come home. Then assimilate them. |
Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Gillette |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 14:47:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
It's stuff like this that got me into computing in the first place (naïve, I know). I dream with the day they'll have microprocessors implanted in brains, and I've seen they already have armors that enhance muscle activity (good for people like me!). Pretty neat stuff.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/03_exo.shtml
The program I saw showed an advanced model of this kind of exoskeleton you might be thinking of... The one in the article looks like a rough draft.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 17:34:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
It's stuff like this that got me into computing in the first place (naïve, I know). I dream with the day they'll have microprocessors implanted in brains, and I've seen they already have armors that enhance muscle activity (good for people like me!). Pretty neat stuff.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/03_exo.shtml
The program I saw showed an advanced model of this kind of exoskeleton you might be thinking of... The one in the article looks like a rough draft.
The one I saw was in Japan. Still under study, of course, but they were thinking about mass production already. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 21:51:11 [Permalink]
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Yeah, the Japanese one I saw worked as an apparently low-power exoskelton for the arm and (if I recall) the leg, one each one one side. It was for stroke victims and did not work off the brain, but merely mirrored the opposite, unaffected limb. Not directly practical, but very good, I think, for maintaining range-of-motion, which I know from personal experience is lost in strokes victims. So it preserves that while your brain is rewiring for mobility.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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woolytoad
Skeptic Friend
313 Posts |
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Prosthetics integrated by the brain
