Reality Crowd

Every morning I wake up, and I still feel like me. My conscious experience feels stable, natural, consistent, and singular (me). However, as Jill Bolte Taylor, our speaker and brain scientist describes, the two halves of our brains have distinctly separate experiences. They function very differently from one another and care about different things entirely. Having a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain and having left-brain functions individually shut down gave to her unique insight to her mind. She describes in vivid detail how her unaffected right hemisphere became more and more responsible for her entire conscious experience as her left-brain failed. She describes a profound awakening experience as she came to know pure right-brain thought and the hemisphere’s personal experience. She gives insights to the mind on a scientific level and even reaches into—dare I say—a spiritual realm offering her own words of hope for the experience of the human race.

Now for the fun part! Test your own hemispheres with this optical illusion.

Have a seat and enjoy your free virtual reality haircut (with headphones). Enjoy the amazing ability of your brain to perceive the location of a sound by calculating input from both ears.

Researchers now say they have strong evidence to suggest that the area of the brain responsible for this discerning ability is the planum temporale. Read this Science Daily article here discussing recent findings of the planum temporale and the brain’s amazing ability to locate sounds in three-dimensional space.

Long the domain of science fiction and futurists, it seems that connecting the human brain to computers is coming sooner than you might think. We recently discussed scientists working on mapping a rat’s brain at the neuron level. They think they will have a working model of a human brain within a decade. On the hardware front, engineer Ted Berger at The University of Southern California has spent the past ten years designing a computer chip that can re-create thoughts. Using a needle hooked into a rat’s brain tissue and attached to a small silicone chip, the team of researchers has been able to send and receive electrical pulses from the brain. The chip is a huge first step toward implantable computers in our brains. Eventually, researchers hope to be able to help patients with all sorts of memory disorders, from Alzheimer’s to absent mindedness.

Some day you should be able to stop forgetting where you put your keys with a simple hardware upgrade. However, don’t get excited quite yet. Berger’s chip currently models about 12,000 neuron connections while the brain has an astounding 100 billion! Not to fear though, Richard H. Granger, Jr., a professor of brain sciences who leads the Neukom Institute for Interdisciplinary Computational Sciences at Dartmouth College states that:

Replicating memory is going to happen in our lifetimes, and that puts us on the edge of being able to understand how thought arises from tissue--in other words, to understand what consciousness really means.

Can’t wait a lifetime? Well, the BrainGate Neural Interface System is currently undergoing clinical FDA trials for approval. The System consists of a sensor that is implanted on the motor cortex of the brain and a device that analyzes brain signals. The principle of operation behind the BrainGate System is that with intact brain function, brain signals are generated even though they are not sent to the arms, hands and legs. The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements, offering the user an alternate “BrainGate pathway” to control a computer with thought, just as individuals who have the ability to move their hands use a mouse. Currently aimed at severely disabled people, the product is expected to be quickly ramped up for use on people with lesser disabilities.

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It is exciting to think that through technological advances in computers, we may soon be able to simulate the human brain, every cell represented.

This article, published by MIT, describes a project with the goal of modeling 10,000 neurons and 30 million synaptic connections of the neocortical column of a rat. Though only a small component of a mammal’s brain, it is one of the most complex. Researchers feel that they will model the entire brain of a rat within a few years and be able to simulate a human’s brain in about a decade.

According to the article:

By mimicking the behavior of the brain down to the individual neuron, the researchers aim to create a modeling tool that can be used by neuroscientists to run experiments, test hypotheses, and analyze the effects of drugs….

It should be noted that the simulation is being developed specifically for medical research and is not an attempt to create artificial intelligence. Though, seeing that a small portion of the brain can be so accurately constructed leads one to the tantalizing prospect that we may be able to soon create some type of functional model of the entire brain--researchers seem sure of it. Enjoy the article in its entirety:

“A Working Brain Model”
Technology Review-MIT

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