The past two years proved to be very fruitful in the world of
neuroscience, with both academia and industry exposing new secrets of the mind and
unveiling yet more awe-inspiring gadgets. The year has not only delivered
incredible breakthroughs in neuroprosthetics, visual stimulation and mind-reading,
but also witnessed a substantial leap forward in our understanding of the
“connectome” – the complex universe of neuronal pathways and interactions which
shape the mind. Most remarkably, it is becoming increasingly clear that our
practical knowledge of grey matter is improving at electric speeds, as more and
more life-saving technologies contest to humanity’s neuro-scientific
accomplishments.
Below is a collection of some of last year’s prominent
advancements, starting with perhaps the most celebrated: the thought-powered
leg.
Having lost his limb in a motorcycle accident, 31-year-old
Zac Vawter was fitted with a bionic replacement, called electromyeloid
prosthesis—operated entirely by his mind. The neuroprosthetic was initially
developed at the Rehabilitation Institute of
Chicago (RIC) in 2005, and has reached the peak of its performance last year,
when Vawter demonstrated the bionic leg’s awesome powers by climbing 103
flights of stairs of Chicago’s Willis Tower—even skipping two steps at a time. The device works owing to “targeted muscle
reinnervation” (TMR) –essentially a re-wiring of the patient’s neuronal
pathways. When Vawter’s leg was amputated, the nerves of his lower leg were
surgically rerouted to his hamstring, where muscle signals powering his
neuro-robotic leg now originate. Legs have not been the sole limb eligible for
neuro-replacement: in 2001 researchers at the Rehabilitation Centre awed the
public when they fitted bionic arms for Jesse Sullivan, a 40-year-old
electrician who lost both limbs in a work accident. Hundreds of
neuroprosthetics have since been implanted, getting incredibly nifty from year
to year.
Therapeutic
neurostimulation has also been hot off the
conveyor belt last year. Israeli Brainsway is a developer of a Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) device which, in essence, is a fancy name for a deep
brain tissue massager. Brainsway’s key technology—Deep TMS System—exploits our
knowledge about areas of the brain responsible for depression and other
neurological disorders, the likes of which are Alzheimers and schizophrenia.
The system comes in the shape of a brain helmet which offers completely non-invasive
electromagnetic neurostimulation of grey matter. By stimulating areas
responsible for depression, the TMS helmet offers an effective 15-minute
anti-depression “cranial massage”. Sounds a little sci-fi? The FDA does not
think so—the agency has recently approved Brainsway’s TMS system for the
treatment of depression patients who have not responded well to other
treatments, and the company is working on expanding their therapeutic targets
towards autism and Parkinson’s disease in the near future.
Not any less important on the list of last year’s breakthrough
neuro-developments is our newfound mind-reading ability. Using electrodes to detect spikes in brain
activity, scientists have been able to map areas of the brain responsible for a
plethora of thoughts, actions and emotions. They have now put that knowledge to
use, quite literally communicating with a comatose patient with the use of an
fMRI scanner. A man believed to be in a vegetative state for 12 years was able
to tell doctors he was not in pain, kick-starting what has since become a
revolution in our understanding of the comatose state. The occurrence caused medical
books to be rewritten, as it gave us the ability to communicate with thousands
of patients previously deemed unresponsive.
Since its inception mind-reading wasted no time expanding
beyond hospital walls. Last year has brought up the phenomenon of mind-controlled
gaming (MCG)—and the dangers this form
of entertainment carries with it. Despite its early stages of existence, MCG has
gained popularity in recent years, and developers like NeuroSky and Emotiv are
already marketing devices which detect and interpret brain waves via external
electrodes. The issue is—our understanding of this type of interface is akin to
our familiarity with the brain—the foundations are certainly in place, but
hardly solid enough to embark on an elaborate build. With that said, an
important finding emerged at last year’s Usenix security conference in Seattle:
mind-controlled interfaces pose a very realistic threat of “brain leaks”. In
other words, in what is probably the most fearsome of worldly exploits, a
hacker who gains access to an MCG device can potentially access the user’s
thoughts. Particularly at stake is private information such as pin codes and
passwords, which can be deduced via spikes in electroencephalography
(EEG) readings in response to words and images familiar to the user.
And it looks like the burgeoning
thought-stealing market comes with its very own weapon: a memory chip now exists in
its literal form. Scientists at the Wake Forest University and the University of
Southern California have, in an ingenious set of experiments, demonstrated successful
thought implantation in mice. Having observed specific brain activity in mice
familiarizing themselves with a maze, scientists then implanted a microchip in
the subjects’ brains which could be programmed to stimulate the same set of
neurons in a different setting. Thus, once a mouse memorized mazeA, for
instance, and was then moved to mazeB, a specific memory pattern could be
triggered by the implanted microchip which would bring up memories of the
familiar maze. Much to the scientists’ astonishment, the mouse would follow the
same familiar trail in any new environment—but only if its “familiarity
neurons” were triggered by the microchip. Even more bizarrely, the same implant
in a completely new subject’s brain brought up the same hybrid memories. The
implications of this research are unfathomable: starting with interfering with
harmful memories of trauma or disease, all the way down to sci-fi manipulation
of the mind we have for so long anticipated in fear.
And just when you thought neuroscience couldn’t
get any more awesomely frightening, false memory implants can now be completed
with a full set of artificially-controlled decision
making. As a harbinger
of what forward-looking science authors have previously dubbed the menticide,
scientists have demonstrated the ability to correct the decision-making process
in cognitively impaired non-human primates. The MIMO (or multi-input multi-output) prosthesis is able to learn
from correct decision-making patterns in the brain, and to “replay” them in
primates which were mentally impaired following drug administration. The MIMO
was able to improve decision making 10% above the norm—and that is just the
beginning. Researchers hope that in the future this type of device will benefit
people who have suffered strokes and brain injuries which resulted in
diminished cognitive ability.
A similarly wonderful
technology which neuroscientists claim is only 5 years away is “webcam vision”—a technology which is based
on artificial stimulation of the visual cortex in visually impaired patients.
For some time now it has been known that blind people are able to “see” just
with their brains, and a prosthetic device which could detect the external
environment and generate basic images in the brain is only half a decade away.
Currently, a team of scientists at the University of Texas are generating a
detailed map of the visual cortex, and are hoping to begin working on a visual
prosthetic device in the near future.
And last but certainly not
least, alongside the fascinating annual developments in the sphere of
neuroscience runs our continuous effort to fathom the complex macrocosm which
unites every neuron, synapse and chemical signal in the brain. A massively
ambitious effort to map brain synapses, titled “The Human Connectome Project” has been underway in the
neuroscientific community. Not only does the initiative hope to re-create a
complex 3D neuronal map of the brain, but it also aims to answer the very basic
question of how neuronal synapses—or nerve crossroads—are formed, and what
influences this formation. A breakthrough milestone was achieved in this sphere
in 2012: scientists were able to unveil key principles which guide the
formation of neuronal interceptions, and applied these principles to a
computational structural prediction model. In this way they were able to
demonstrate that brain neurons grow independently of each other, and form
connections once they intercept each other’s paths in the brain. The
implications of such a development are not negligible: the breakthrough has
brought us eons closer to a realistic possibility of an in silico brain
reconstruction.
Last years' key advancements
showcased here would probably sound like yet another science fiction novel to
the untrained ear, but ironically they are mere specks in the rich and
succulent broth of neurotech progress today. The pace with which the field of neuroscience
has been advancing in recent years is unparalleled by any other sphere of
knowledge, and the coming decade will inevitably bring about exponential leaps
in our abilities to treat, shape and harness the mind. One thing is clear: if
the past is any indication of the future, the future is absolutely
neuro-tastic.
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