The Scientific American: Brave New Brain: How Neuroscience, Brain-Machine Interfaces, Neuroimaging, Psychopharmacology, Epigenetics, the Internet, ... and Enhancing the Future of Mental Power
Judith Horstman
Language: English
Pages: 211
ISBN: 2:00266534
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This fascinating and highly accessible book presents fantastic but totally feasible projections of what your brain may be capable of in the near future. It shows how scientific breakthroughs and amazing research are turning science fiction into science fact. In this brave new book, you'll explore:
* How partnerships between biological sciences and technology are helping the deaf hear, the blind see, and the paralyzed communicate.
* How our brains can repair and improve themselves, erase traumatic memories
* How we can stay mentally alert longer €”and how we may be able to halt or even reverse Alzheimers
* How we can control technology with brain waves, including prosthetic devices, machinery, computers—and even spaceships or clones.
Insights into how science may cure fatal diseases, and improve our intellectual and physical productivity
Judith Horstman presents a highly informative and entertaining look at the future of your brain, based on articles from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind magazines, and the work of today’s visionary neuroscientists.
Pictures of the Mind: What the New Neuroscience Tells Us About Who We Are
Intuition for Beginners: Easy Ways to Awaken Your Natural Abilities
The Wiley Handbook on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory
Up watching their classmates with ADHD take these pills for a decade or more with no perceived ill effects. It’s true that millions of people have taken these medications without obvious incident since they were first prescribed in the 1950s, and a number of studies have found no adverse effects on stimulanttreated children or even differences between stimulant-treated children and those not on medication. In 2009 child psychiatrist Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health and his.
Erase exactly, and only, what we want to get rid of would be. We’ve been able to erase memory for decades with electroshock therapy (EST), at least temporarily (though indiscriminately and sometimes brutally). But EST doesn’t affect consolidated memories. The same is true of a trauma during the consolidation phase, such as a blow to the head or an accident that disrupts brain activity and leaves a gap in memory for that period of time—but doesn’t help erase those old, set, terrible memories.
Brain and soft tissues. fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). This brain scan can measure blood flow and other activity in the brain in action and in real time. MEG (magnetoencephalography). Measures the magnetic fields created by the electric current flowing within the neurons and detects brain activity associated with various functions in real time. SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography). Uses a small amount of radioactive tracer in a way similar to a PET to measure and.
“Your Bionic Brain,” p. 101). It’s not an easy surgery, it’s not a cure, and the procedure has risks. It’s an exact and delicate surgery, and the first puzzle for neurosurgeons is figuring out precisely where in the brain to place the electrode to affect only the neurons related to the condition being treated, without causing side effects by accidentally activating the wrong spot. DBS doesn’t sharpen or revive mental functions or stop the disease from progressing; and it can affect adjacent parts.
That can be controlled wirelessly by your thoughts and send back sensory information—in effect, taking your consciousness where you can’t (or don’t want to) take your actual brain and body, such as an alien planet. Although cloning humans is—for now—forbidden, it’s possible. So is wireless mind control of such a living avatar: We’re already able to control robots and computers wirelessly with neural impulses, and animals with brain implants. A lot of research and technology has to happen before.