6 ms·

I always feel so confused by--and skeptical of--these kinds of brain implant technologies. It says: "The chip then automatically triggers a light beam to stimu

by warent 5y ago

I always feel so confused by--and skeptical of--these kinds of brain implant technologies. It says: "The chip then automatically triggers a light beam to stimulate the region, activating neurons that can override pain signals." Isn't that potentially stimulating millions or even hundreds of millions of neurons? We don't know what each individual neuron is doing. How is it possible to do this without causing bizarre malfunctions of the brain at best, or completely lobotomizing someone at worst?

mrtksn 5y ago
It sounds like they depend on the smoke test, doesn't it? Despite the huge advancements in biological sciences, when I get interested in something and read about it I would encounter the "We don't know why exactly it works but it works" much more often than I am used to. It feels so wrong.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Life follows a simple set of rules with an extensive set of exceptions.
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    Nitpicking here, I would tweak the wording: > Life follows a simple set of heuristics with an extensive set of exceptions. And that's OK: heuristics allow a person to intuit some high-level behavior without having to derive it from the lower-level rules (laws). It's readily admitted that the heuristic isn't 100% accurate, and when it's inaccurate you fall back to that explicit derivation process. From the outsider view of biology, there appear to be many heuristics for which we don't know how to derive from the underlying laws. Chemistry, at various points in time, has had similar issues, but over time we've expanded the amount of things we can derive from underlying physics. Biology, I hope, will follow in time.
letswim420 5y ago
Don't have access to the PDF but they might be using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics This requires genetically engineered mice, which is why they only have this working for mice?
- jahabrewer 5y ago
  Article specifically says they use optogenetics.
Retric 5y ago
The brain is far more robust than often assumed. Read up on Anatoli Bugorski for example. He had rather significant brain damage yet there was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity. He did suffer from seizures after the accident, but that’s about it. These kinds of implants have serious risks including infections etc, but for people with long term chronic pain there are few options.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  I've seen a few instances where pain management becomes the overall deciding factor in peoples' day to day life. "I can't go to work and feed my family because everything hurts so bad" can become a common statement for these people. In addition, addiction to painkillers, spending a huge percentage of your income at compounding pharmacies, and turning to illegal and possibly dangerous drugs to save a buck or to fill the gap between your needs and the insurance companies' coverage are all issues that a non-chemical pain management system like this could solve. I'm sure it's dangerous and weird to toy with your brain but for many people in America alone the risk would be more than worth the reward.
  - after_care 5y ago
    I’d also like to add that this new technology could actually have an impact on a smaller percentage of the body than pharmaceuticals do.
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    As a chronic pain sufferer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa basically saved my life. The DEA tried to ban it a few years ago but too many cancer patients testified before Congress how well it worked compared to the prescription opioids. The DEA was forced to bow out. The cool thing about Mitragyna speciosa is that it's a tree, a pretty hardy one. In my experience, the older trees have more potent leaves, but ideally, one could plant this tree in their backyard and never have to worry about being dependent on outside help for their pain ever again. You just dry the leaves and make tea from them.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
Humans are capable of building nano-lasers in the lab as of 2009: https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/08/17/210962/the-smallest-laser-ever-made/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/08/17/210962/the-small...
xkcd-sucks 5y ago
>The BMI decodes the onset of nociception via a state-space model on the basis of the analysis of online-sorted spikes recorded from the anterior cingulate cortex (which is critical for pain processing) and couples real-time pain detection with optogenetic activation of the prelimbic prefrontal cortex (which exerts top–down nociceptive regulation). In rats >Example ChR2 expression in the prelimbic PFC. Highmagnification (100x) view of the expression of YFP-ChR2 in the prelimbic PFC demonstrated the co-staining of pyramidal neuron markers (CaMKII) with YFP. Arrows point to examples of co-stained neurons. (from abstract and supplementary info, scihub is kind of down) On their own (generally speaking!), very few neurons "respond" to low intensity light. "Optogenetics" stuff like this inserts a gene encoding a light sensitive ion channel in order to make cells responsive to a specific wavelength of light. So there's two types of targeting here: Targeting gene expression to a certain population of cells, and then spatially targeting a group of those cells with the light - Blue light doesn't travel very far in tissue. (Also targeting multiple cell populations within a region using multiple colors of light + differently sensitive proteins). Of course your comment still stands - Presumably not all the CamKII-positive PFC neurons are involved in nociception, and rats can't talk about their conscious experience so the answers there are limited to what questions researchers chose to ask using the limited tools available.
- hall0ween 5y ago
  Expressing ChR2 at levels of CamKII is flipping crazy (but widely accepted by the research community). It makes up 6% of the proteins in the brain. Lol, I lol at optogenetic expression at that level as something that won’t have unintended consequences.
etrautmann 5y ago
Yes, but there are surprising cases where broad stimulation is effective, like deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease or cochlear implants. It’s surprising that you don’t need perfectly targeted stimulation patterns to achieve a therapeutic output, but often times it does seem to have a benefit. We think you can do much better for many applications with targeted stimulation, and that’s the direction that many of these implant technologies are heading. I’m a Neuroscientist working on BCI
bserge 5y ago
That's how most drugs primarily affecting the brain work. Not saying it's a good thing, but in the absence of better options, anything is better than nothing.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> Isn't that potentially stimulating millions or even hundreds of millions of neurons? We don't know what each individual neuron is doing. How is it possible to do this without causing bizarre malfunctions of the brain at best, or completely lobotomizing someone at worst? Many psychiatric drugs affect large parts of the brain despite the drugs' efficacies being determined by their effects on much smaller parts of the brain. For example, some anxiolytic and antidepressant effects are mediated by changes at certain serotonin-1A receptors in certain parts of the brain, yet common drugs like SSRIs change serotonin levels all over the brain and body. You could categorize SSRI-induced activation of 5HT2C receptors as a 'bizarre malfunction', as it causes increased anxiety and dysphoria, which is the opposite of what you'd want if you're trying to treat anxiety or depression. Alcohol works like this in the body, as well. I'm skeptical of most brain implants for other reasons[1], though. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27135696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27135696
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by warent 5y ago

mrtksn 5y ago

It sounds like they depend on the smoke test, doesn't it? Despite the huge advancements in biological sciences, when I get interested in something and read about it I would encounter the "We don't know why exactly it works but it works" much more often than I am used to. It feels so wrong.

meepmorp 5y ago
Life follows a simple set of rules with an extensive set of exceptions.
- wallacoloo 5y ago
  Nitpicking here, I would tweak the wording: > Life follows a simple set of heuristics with an extensive set of exceptions. And that's OK: heuristics allow a person to intuit some high-level behavior without having to derive it from the lower-level rules (laws). It's readily admitted that the heuristic isn't 100% accurate, and when it's inaccurate you fall back to that explicit derivation process. From the outsider view of biology, there appear to be many heuristics for which we don't know how to derive from the underlying laws. Chemistry, at various points in time, has had similar issues, but over time we've expanded the amount of things we can derive from underlying physics. Biology, I hope, will follow in time.

letswim420 5y ago

Don't have access to the PDF but they might be using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics This requires genetically engineered mice, which is why they only have this working for mice?

jahabrewer 5y ago
Article specifically says they use optogenetics.

Retric 5y ago

The brain is far more robust than often assumed. Read up on Anatoli Bugorski for example. He had rather significant brain damage yet there was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity. He did suffer from seizures after the accident, but that’s about it. These kinds of implants have serious risks including infections etc, but for people with long term chronic pain there are few options.

BizarroLand 5y ago
I've seen a few instances where pain management becomes the overall deciding factor in peoples' day to day life. "I can't go to work and feed my family because everything hurts so bad" can become a common statement for these people. In addition, addiction to painkillers, spending a huge percentage of your income at compounding pharmacies, and turning to illegal and possibly dangerous drugs to save a buck or to fill the gap between your needs and the insurance companies' coverage are all issues that a non-chemical pain management system like this could solve. I'm sure it's dangerous and weird to toy with your brain but for many people in America alone the risk would be more than worth the reward.
- after_care 5y ago
  I’d also like to add that this new technology could actually have an impact on a smaller percentage of the body than pharmaceuticals do.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  As a chronic pain sufferer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa basically saved my life. The DEA tried to ban it a few years ago but too many cancer patients testified before Congress how well it worked compared to the prescription opioids. The DEA was forced to bow out. The cool thing about Mitragyna speciosa is that it's a tree, a pretty hardy one. In my experience, the older trees have more potent leaves, but ideally, one could plant this tree in their backyard and never have to worry about being dependent on outside help for their pain ever again. You just dry the leaves and make tea from them.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

Humans are capable of building nano-lasers in the lab as of 2009: https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/08/17/210962/the-smallest-laser-ever-made/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/08/17/210962/the-small...

xkcd-sucks 5y ago

>The BMI decodes the onset of nociception via a state-space model on the basis of the analysis of online-sorted spikes recorded from the anterior cingulate cortex (which is critical for pain processing) and couples real-time pain detection with optogenetic activation of the prelimbic prefrontal cortex (which exerts top–down nociceptive regulation). In rats >Example ChR2 expression in the prelimbic PFC. Highmagnification (100x) view of the expression of YFP-ChR2 in the prelimbic PFC demonstrated the co-staining of pyramidal neuron markers (CaMKII) with YFP. Arrows point to examples of co-stained neurons. (from abstract and supplementary info, scihub is kind of down) On their own (generally speaking!), very few neurons "respond" to low intensity light. "Optogenetics" stuff like this inserts a gene encoding a light sensitive ion channel in order to make cells responsive to a specific wavelength of light. So there's two types of targeting here: Targeting gene expression to a certain population of cells, and then spatially targeting a group of those cells with the light - Blue light doesn't travel very far in tissue. (Also targeting multiple cell populations within a region using multiple colors of light + differently sensitive proteins). Of course your comment still stands - Presumably not all the CamKII-positive PFC neurons are involved in nociception, and rats can't talk about their conscious experience so the answers there are limited to what questions researchers chose to ask using the limited tools available.

hall0ween 5y ago
Expressing ChR2 at levels of CamKII is flipping crazy (but widely accepted by the research community). It makes up 6% of the proteins in the brain. Lol, I lol at optogenetic expression at that level as something that won’t have unintended consequences.

etrautmann 5y ago

Yes, but there are surprising cases where broad stimulation is effective, like deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease or cochlear implants. It’s surprising that you don’t need perfectly targeted stimulation patterns to achieve a therapeutic output, but often times it does seem to have a benefit. We think you can do much better for many applications with targeted stimulation, and that’s the direction that many of these implant technologies are heading. I’m a Neuroscientist working on BCI

bserge 5y ago

That's how most drugs primarily affecting the brain work. Not saying it's a good thing, but in the absence of better options, anything is better than nothing.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> Isn't that potentially stimulating millions or even hundreds of millions of neurons? We don't know what each individual neuron is doing. How is it possible to do this without causing bizarre malfunctions of the brain at best, or completely lobotomizing someone at worst? Many psychiatric drugs affect large parts of the brain despite the drugs' efficacies being determined by their effects on much smaller parts of the brain. For example, some anxiolytic and antidepressant effects are mediated by changes at certain serotonin-1A receptors in certain parts of the brain, yet common drugs like SSRIs change serotonin levels all over the brain and body. You could categorize SSRI-induced activation of 5HT2C receptors as a 'bizarre malfunction', as it causes increased anxiety and dysphoria, which is the opposite of what you'd want if you're trying to treat anxiety or depression. Alcohol works like this in the body, as well. I'm skeptical of most brain implants for other reasons[1], though. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27135696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27135696

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]