US Military Creating Brain Chips To Regulate Emotion. The Pentagon is developing an innovative brain chip that would help to treat PTSD in soldiers and veterans that could eventually help to bring sweeping changes to the way depression and anxiety is treated for millions of Americans. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, wants to reach deep into your brain’s soft tissue in order to record, predict, and treat anxiety, depression, and other maladies of mood and mind. Together, teams from the University of California at San Francisco, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and Medtronic, will use the money to create a cybernetic implant that will have electrodes extending into the brain. The military is optimistic in having the prototype completed within just 5 years, and it then plans to seek FDA approval for the device. DARPA’s “Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies” program has seen more than a decade of research in treating disorders such as Parkinson’s disease via a technique called deep brain stimulation. With this treatment, low doses of electricity are sent deep into the brain much in the same way that a defibrillator is used to send electricity win order to jump-start a heart following cardiac arrest. “DARPA is looking for ways to characterize which regions come into play for different conditions – measured from brain networks down to the single neuron level – and develop therapeutic devices that can record activity, deliver targeted stimulation, and most importantly, automatically adjust therapy as the brain itself changes,” stated the DARPA program manager Justin Sanchez. The Air Force has also been interested in studying the brain using electricity, and they’ve been conducting studies that examine the effects of low amounts of electricity on the brain by using a non-invasive interface. More specifically, they’ve been using a cap that doesn’t penetrate into the skull. The objective is to deliver a surge or boost with the cap, so that it helps to keep soldiers awake and stay alert through long stretches of piloting or screen interaction. “With existing technology, we can’t really record anxiety level inside the brain. We can potentially record adrenaline and cortisol levels in the bloodstream to measure anxiety. However, if a deep brain implant is to be used (as proposed in this project), it might be possible to monitor activity in the amygdala, and this would be a direct way of monitoring anxiety,” states University of Arizona neuroscientist Charles Higgins. If the program is successful, it will yield new brain-monitoring capabilities that have the potential to collect data about when the patient is most likely to encounter traumatic stimuli. The device would record what happens when a subject transitions into a state of depression or anxiousness. Today, such a task can only be accomplished using a brain-monitoring system, like the EEG or MEG. The new technology could promote similar technology which is smaller, more cost-effective, and useful. It is currently predicted that around 1 in 3 soldiers suffer from PTSD after serving. With the increase in prevalence, it’s understandable why so many are vested into researching this technology. However, affording the government with the technology and the ability to implant a chip into soldiers that will promote a stable mood, making them happy regardless of their environment and actions, seems like a scary benefit to the government and military. This may also be applied in conjunction with a similar DARPA project which was recently able to allow human movements to be regulated through a non-invasive machine interface: mind control. Whether these projects are of strategic value may be primary in the military, but attention must be paid to the ethical implications of these technologies. It is unclear what exactly will come out of all this, but the direction these projects appear to be taking is worrying.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 14:06:59 +0000
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