Month: February 2019

Quartz Obsession on Neurostimulation

Total coincidence, this just came out today

I especially like this section, on brain hacking history:

~43 AD: Roman physician Scribonius Largus pens Compositiones Medicamentorum, in which he describes using the bioelectric torpedo fish to treat headache and gout.

11th century: Persian physician Ibn-Sidah suggests using electric catfish to treat epilepsy.

1783: An electrical accident causes physician Jan Ingenhousz to partially lose his memory, but it also makes him strangely happy. In a letter to Benjamin Franklin, with whom he corresponded, Ingenhousz calls for clinical trials into the use of electricity to improve mood.

1890: William James first suggests that the human brain can change over time in The Principles of Psychology. Previously, it was believed that brains were fixed with innate abilities, and that you basically couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks.

1938: Electroshock therapy is introduced by Italian psychiatrists Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini.

1948: Polish neuroscientist Jerzy Konorski coins the term “neuroplasticity,” a reference to the malleable nature of the brain.

1964: The first academic article showing cognitive benefits of neurostimulation is published.

1987: French neurosurgeon Alim Louis Benabid uses deep-brain stimulation to calm the tremor in a patient with Parkinson’s.

2000: Eric Kandel wins the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work showing how nerve cells communicate using electrical and chemical signals, prompting wider interest in neuroplasticity.

2017: The FDA approves the NSS-2 Bridge, the first electric stimulation device approved to treat opioid withdrawal.

Center for Humane Tech/Ethics Guru scheduling

We are trying to schedule Tristan Harris, who is a leading voice on the effects of technology on society and humanity. His comms aide, Lynn, says they may have a tie-in event in April that would allow us to do one-on-one with Tristan but also give us an extra element that could fit into the series. I told them on/before April 23 is what we’re aiming for for Tristan.

Bryan Johnson (Kernel founder) was behind The OS Fund — funding only tech that would rewrite operating systems of life, the world. Tech that might be operable just by thinking about it, essentially changing human interfaces completely. This led to the birth of Kernel and investing in other things in the brain space.

The BrainNet … Potential Applications

We asked the team at the UW Neurotech center to prep us for our upcoming visit to try their brain network and specifically to describe how it will be potentially used:

“Regarding real-world applications, BrainNet is meant to be a proof-of-concept of multiple human brains collaborating to solve a task that none of the brains individually could. Extrapolating this into the future, one can imagine networks of brains overcoming the evolutionary limitations of single brains by solving difficult scientific and social problems facing humanity that no single brain can solve on its own. Other possible applications include a new mode of communication between humans that can be viewed as computer-assisted telepathy, a way to communicate directly with patients who are locked-in, and potentially, a new way to transfer knowledge or skills directly between brains.”