A New Look At Brain Control 65
one_neuron_two_neuron writes "Researchers at Harvard have taken a new look at how electricity can make neurons fire in the brain. The scientists found some surprising things: if you stick an electrode in the brain and apply current, you don't just make a small group of neurons fire — many neurons fire a long way away from the electrode. That's probably because instead of activating the cell bodies of the neurons, their axons fire. Those axons are the wiring of the brain. Your cerebral cortex is something like a big pile of unwound yo-yos — if you stick an electrode into the cortex, you're much more likely to hit the strings (the axons), and the yo-yo connected to the string can be really far away. So, how will you ever hook up a computer to your brain? This data shows that we need to rethink how to do that with electrical current. If you stick an electrode in one place, neurons in a totally different place will fire. New optogenetic methods (e.g. using viral delivery of proteins) might work. Or possibly we will figure out how to make the brain learn to interpret these sparse, widespread electrical patterns. New optical techniques have made a dramatic impact on neuroscience recently, and this study uses pulsed-laser-scanning microscopy (two-photon microscopy) to take pictures of neurons deep inside the living brain. The academic paper (PDF) is available on the author's site."
Re:Computers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who wants to? I can't think of anything dumber.
With the power of a computer attached to your mind, you would be able to think of many things that are dumber, several million times per second!
Re:Computers? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, how will you ever hook up a computer to your brain?
I thought the keyboard already solved this problem... It's not quite direct but it seems to work.
Worst. Analogy. Ever. (Score:1, Insightful)
Your cerebral cortex is something like a big pile of unwound yo-yos
WTF? Why don't they just say "the brain is a big pile of neurons and axons"? It would be more helpful than this bizarre analogy.
Re:Computers? (Score:2, Insightful)
So, how will you ever hook up a computer to your brain?
Who wants to? I can't think of anything dumber.
People have always said that about new technology. Eventually someone comes up with a killer application and it takes off.
Re:Computers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite direct?
It's like trying to get water from one bucket to another, but instead of using a pipe, having to turn it into steam and use a tennis racquet to force it into its new bucket.
Think of all the unnecessary processing that goes into the hand and eye coordination for data entry into a computer, or for the opposite case: all the visual processing that brain needs to do to in order to recognise symbols on a screen, form words and subsequently string those into coherent thoughts. Its utterly and completely inefficient. The only reason we find it acceptable is because at the moment it's the best system we have.
If we could either directly interpret thoughts accurately or feed information into the brain (a task of incredible complexity) we could drastically speed up all sorts of information processing tasks.