Shock horror: US military sticks jump leads on human brains to teach them a lesson The boffinry nerve center of the US military is working with seven American universities to see if electrically stimulating the brain will increase the ability to learn new skills. The Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program is focused on synaptic plasticity, the ability of the brain to build new neural pathways to …
I think he's referring to Trans Cranial Stimulation, an offshoot of neurofeedback that I am yet to be convinced about.
Neurofeedback has done some very good things over the last decade or so, but I'm no fan of the whole TCS idea. I prefer to consider the electrical activity of my brain to be a read-only process so it's either visual feedback or "no, thank you". I'm rather conservative when it comes to disturbing my few remaining grey cells, I reserve that for a few pints of Guinness.
First part is right, second part is bullshit I'm afraid; ECT is nothing whatsoever like any sort of surgical intervention. It's like comparing revving a car to clear the plugs* with reboring the cylinders. (Weak analogy, granted)
* kids today are not expected to understand this
This could be very useful to enhance memory storage (through brain stimulation)... Turn it on when you're studying, turn it off when you're driving or holding a conversation.
Sign me up when we get past invasive surgeries to make it work. Though I'll accept surgery if they can guaranty no Alzheimer's.
We're so far from "memory extraction" I'm not going to worry about it...
"Deep brain stimulation" is already a thing, and an active area of research, particularly for the treatment of severe epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, depression and Tourette Syndrome.
The article should surely have mentioned this.
So odds on bet they won't get far.
But they might get just a little further than anyone else has so far.
Actually the DoD has run various projects since (and including) Viet Nam to improve soldiers language skills. IIRC the kick off tactic was a set of flash cards with key words and phrase (especially interrogative sentences like "Where are the VC hiding?" and " how many men are in your patrol?")
Who wouldn't want a little discretely placed plug you could fit the neural equivalent of a memory stick into and acquire skills with?
Downside. Malware now turns you into a human bot.
BTW it is possible to shut down (and more amazingly reboot) the human brain. It's been done when they do heart/lung operations and drain the patients blood (so no metabolism at all is running). I think the record is less than 10 hours.
Mines the one with the oversize pockets for a copy of "War on the Mind, the Military uses and abuses of Psychology"
A friend seriously wanted to put electrodes and then electricity into a monkey's brain and "make it smarter" something like 20 years ago. I (rather angrily) told him it wasn't that simple. Thankfully, it never happened-- probably it would have never happened anyway because of things like requiring effort, to say nothing of requiring a monkey. He will probably feel cheated out of his 15 minutes of fame if he hears about this.
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