Oh
really. The one thing coming soon will
be the bill. This work is as tentative
and speculative as any I have ever seen.
At best they hope to someday be able to restore physical damage at least
and perhaps this can lead to fresh access.
I suspect we
are really looking at decades of brain mapping and experimentation in order to
discover promising methods. Not least we
can start with reversal of concussion damage and scar tissue removal. This is our biggest challenge and it provides
the best payback.
This is the
beginning however, of the beginning.
Coming
soon: a brain implant to restore memory
By Kerry SheridanMay 2, 2014 12:28 PM
Washington (AFP) - In the next few months,
highly secretive US military researchers say they will unveil new advances
toward developing a brain implant that could one day restore a wounded
soldier's memory.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) is forging ahead with a four-year plan to build a sophisticated
memory stimulator, as part of President Barack Obama's $100 million initiative
to better understand the human brain.
The science has never been done before, and
raises ethical questions about whether the human mind should be manipulated in
the name of staving off war injuries or managing the aging brain.
Some say those who could benefit include the
five million Americans with Alzheimer's disease and the nearly 300,000 US
military men and women who have sustained traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
"If you have been injured in the line
of duty and you can't remember your family, we want to be able to restore those
kinds of functions," DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez said this week
at a conference in the US capital convened by the Center for Brain Health at
the University of Texas at Dallas.
"We think that we can develop
neuroprosthetic devices that can directly interface with the hippocampus, and
can restore the first type of memories we are looking at, the declarative
memories," he said.
Declarative memories are recollections of
people, events, facts and figures, and no research has ever shown they can be
put back once they are lost.
What researchers have been able to do so
far is help reduce tremors in people with Parkinson's disease, cut back on
seizures among epileptics and even boost memory in some Alzheimer's patients
through a process called deep brain stimulation.
Those devices were inspired by cardiac
pacemakers, and pulse electricity into the brain much like a steady drum
beat, but they don't work for everyone.
Experts say a much more nuanced approach is
needed when it comes to restoring memory.
"Memory is patterns and
connections," explained Robert Hampson, an associate professor at Wake
Forest University.
"For us to come up with a memory
prosthetic, we would actually have to have something that delivers specific
patterns," said Hampson, adding that he could not comment specifically on
DARPA's plans.
Hampson's research on rodents and monkeys
has shown that neurons in the hippocampus -- the part of the brain that
processes memory -- fire differently when they see red or blue, or a picture of
a face versus a type of food.
Equipped with this knowledge, Hampson and
colleagues have been able to extend the animals' short-term, working memory
using brain prosthetics to stimulate the hippocampus.
They could coax a drugged monkey into
performing closer to normal at a memory task, and confuse it by manipulating
the signal so that it would choose the opposite image of what it remembered.
According to Hampson, to restore a
human's specific memory, scientists would have to know the precise pattern for
that memory.
Instead, scientists in the field think
they could improve a person's memory by simply helping the brain work more like
it used to before the injury.
"The idea is to restore a function back
to normal or near normal of the memory processing areas of the brain so that
the person can access their formed memories, and so that they can form new
memories as needed," Hampson said.
- Ethical concerns -
It's easy to see how manipulating memories
in people could open up an ethical minefield, said Arthur Caplan, a medical
ethicist at New York University's Langone Medical Center.
"When you fool around with the brain
you are fooling around with personal identity," said Caplan, who advises
DARPA on matters of synthetic biology but not neuroscience.
"The cost of altering the mind is you
risk losing sense of self, and that is a new kind of risk we never faced."
When it comes to soldiers, the potential for
erasing memories or inserting new ones could interfere with combat techniques,
make warriors more violent and less conscientious, or even thwart
investigations into war crimes, he said.
"If I could take a pill or put a helmet
on and have some memories wiped out, maybe I don't have to live with the
consequences of what I do," Caplan said.
DARPA's website says that because its
"programs push the leading edge of science," the agency "periodically
convenes scholars with expertise in these issues to discuss relevant ethical,
legal, and social issues."
Just who might be first in line for the
experiments is another of the many unknowns.
Sanchez said the path forward will be
formally announced in the next few months.
"We have got some of the most talented
scientists in our country that will be working on this project. So stay tuned.
Lots of exciting things will be coming in the very near future."
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