Radical Prosthetic Implants

An article in Scientific American titled "Scientists Set Sights on an Implantable Prosthetic for the Blind" tells about a Boston neuroscientist who is "developing a device that may someday help the blind by sending images directly to the brain."

That's an extraordinary advance, and seems certain to be just the first step toward near-miraculous prosthetic implants that someday soon not only will allow the blind to see, but could restore healthy function to all manner of disabled people.

For example, implantable deep brain stimulation (DBS) approaches already are being used successfully to treat chronic debilitating depression, as well as Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders.

According to this article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

It [DBS] is being studied as a treatment of last resort for disorders such as Tourette's syndrome, obesity, anorexia, stroke recovery, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, cluster headaches, chronic pain and addiction.

Deep brain stimulation uses electric current to change the intricate communication system of the brain, but while the mechanics of the surgery have been almost perfected, researchers still debate exactly what it is they are doing that makes people better.

But people do get better.

In trials involving patients with severe depression and debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, who never left their homes or were trapped in lives constrained by repeated rituals, DBS offered help where other treatments had failed.

Of course, the next level of such devices might be those that would correct not only disabilities, but also things that might be called 'defects'. The problem there, however, is who gets to decide what is a defect and what is not.

In the second episode of the "Power of Small" public TV series that I wrote about last week, the idea was raised of using DBS not just for treating depression and other illnesses, but as a voluntary stimulant for "normal" people who just want to feel happier from time to time. Why not allow responsible adults to purchase their own implants for triggering the release of endorphins?

This, obviously, raises concerns about the possibility of having large segments of society that end up zoned out all the time, as with 'soma' in Brave New World.

Perhaps regulations will be introduced to try to prevent such "abuse" -- but then imagine the black market potential that would create.

Alternatively, reformers might propose that we use implants to treat offenders with known criminal tendencies or antisocial disorders.

But why stop there? Why not give everyone an implant that would limit destructive aggression? Or another that would prevent harmful lying?

The March 13 issue of Discover magazine includes a story titled "Has Science Found a Way to End All Wars?" It doesn't directly deal with the near-future scientific probability that humans could be bioengineered to make them less warlike, nor with the huge ethical issues that will arise when that becomes possible, although the research the article describes might lead one to think in that direction.

Maybe now is the time for more large-scale discussion of such questions to begin. With medical technology progressing so rapidly, and -- looming over the horizon -- with nanomedicine, which could make all other implant therapies look like child's play, we really need to get people thinking about the new world that shortly awaits us.

Mike Treder

Comments

[Nato Welch]

//"Why not allow responsible adults to purchase their own implants for triggering the release of endorphins?"//

Replace "implants" with "drugs". Welcome to the present.

//"This, obviously, raises concerns about the possibility of having large segments of society that end up zoned out all the time"//

They're here. We call them stoners. They pay their taxes. They raise their kids. They do their jobs. In fact, if it wasn't for their jobs, they wouldn't smoke so much pot to deal with the stress.

//"imagine the black market potential that would create."//

It's here. now. To stay. I know. Skeery. /deadpan

Of course, this isn't to say that all drugs are the same, nor to say what, if any, addictive qualities DBS can have. It seems that you can control that possibility to a far greater degree with DBS than you can with drugs. Is DBS more like THC, or Heroin? If the latter, is that really a problem for someone who never runs out of high, and can tune it down at anytime they feel the need to?

[Vinayagamoorthy]

Right now we get highs by direct pleasures from outside world(like drugs/DBS/liquor/outing) or by comparing our past bad states with current good states in our mind. To reach the good states we do something useful in the real (outside)world. If we have the option of being in high state all the time cheaply, we may not try to do the useful things. Some of the useful things to be considered can be finding cure for AIDS, Cancer and eradicating poverty, etc. So the DBS and such things can only be used temporarily, may be for few decades in the future. We should, in the longterm, aim at attacking the actual problems in the real world and then make sure that we get highs from the actual signals from the outside world permanently.

[Vinayagamoorthy]

Also I doubt if DBS will work in me when I see that my wife or my son is sufferring from some disease. Even if it works, it is only dangerous because I might just ignore the sufferings of my loved ones and invite problems in the long term.

[Tom Craver]

SNORT!! :-}

Science eliminating war by reducing human aggression! Who honestly thinks the rich and powerful will allow themselves or their children to be neutered? It's aggression and ambition that got them where they are, and those are qualities they will not easily give up.

And it is inevitably the powerful on one or both sides who get us into wars.

More likely this technology would be used to make the masses more compliant - which would make it *easier* to go to war.