Quackery or Breakthrough?

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GIThruster
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Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by GIThruster »

"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

MSimon
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by MSimon »

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCo ... 291109.pdf
Device: Cranial Electrical Stimulation via FW-100 Fisher Wallace Cranial Stimulator
CES current - 100Hz, symmetrical rectangular biphasic, 20% duty cycle current for 20-minutes, 5 days/week for 3 weeks.
Other Names:

FW-100 Fisher Wallace Cranial Stimulator
Formerly known as: Liss Cranial Stimulator Model SBL202-B

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01325532
He bought the patents in 2007. Probably got them cheap - they expired no later than 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/16/busin ... -pain.html

http://www.google.com/patents/US5109847
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

paperburn1
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by paperburn1 »

From scifi
In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been fitted with an electronic brain implant (called a "droud" in the stories) to stimulate the pleasure centres of their brain. In the Known Space universe, wireheading is the most addictive habit known (Louis Wu is the only given example of a recovered addict), and wireheads usually die from neglecting themselves in favour of the ceaseless pleasure. Wireheading is so powerful and easy that it becomes an evolutionary pressure, selecting against that portion of Known Space humanity without self-control. Also in this science fiction there is a device called a "tasp" (similar to Transcranial magnetic stimulation) that does not need a surgical implant; the pleasure center of a person brain is found and remotely stimulated (a violation without getting the persons consent beforehand), an important Sci-Fi device in the Ringworld novels.
A wirehead's death is central to Niven's Gil 'the Arm' Hamilton story, Death by Ecstasy, published by Galaxy Magazine in 1969, and a main character in the book Ringworld Engineers is a former wirehead trying to quit.
Niven's stories explain wireheads by mentioning a study in which experimental rats had electrodes implanted at strategic locations in their brains, so that an applied current would induce a pleasant feeling. If the current could be obtained any time the rats pushed the lever, they would use it over and over, ignoring food and physical necessities until they died. Such experiments were actually conducted by James Olds and Peter Milner in the 1950s, first discovering the locations of such areas, and later showing extremes to which rats would go to obtain the stimulus again.[1][2]
In Real World
Dr. Robert Galbraith Heath actually placed electrodes in his subjects brains in the 1950s to try to treat their mental illness. Dr. Health wrote several papers on his work of stimulating the various regions of the brain.
José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado also placed electrodes in his patients brains. He called his inventions a "stimoceiver" and a "chemitrode".
1963: "Electrical self-stimulation of the brain in man." by Dr. Robert Heath.[3]
1972: A 24-year-old man with temporal lobe epilepsy, identified as patient "B-19". "He was permitted to wear the device for 3 hours at a time: on one occasion he stimulated his septal region 1,200 times, on another occasion 1,500 times, and on a third occasion 900 times. He protested each time the unit was taken from him, pleading to self-stimulate just a few more times... " [4][5][6]
1986: A 48-year-old woman with chronic pain. "the patient self-stimulated throughout the day, neglecting personal hygiene and family commitments."[4]
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by Tom Ligon »

Back in college I got to see a wirehead rat a psyche professor kept for experiments. The rat could be trained to do just about anything for a jolt to the medial forebrain bundle. If you gave the rat a lever to press, he'd just stand there pressing the lever, supposedly until he died of starvation and dehydration.

Fortunately for the rat, the prof unplugged him after each demonstration.

According to the prof, the experiments on humans on the medial forebrain bundle and a corresponding negative reinforcement center don't so much produce pleasure and pain, but more the subject would say something like, "I don't know what that was, but do it AGAIN," or "I don't know what that was, but if you do it again I'm gonna HURT you."

GIThruster
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by GIThruster »

One wonders what the outcomes of such a technology would be. Right now, most of the top of each socio-economic pyramid in every nation understands that in preindustrial societies, children are hands to work, but in post industrial societies they're mouths to feed. Hence we have negative population growth in Europe and only slight growth in the US, and most of that growth is in the lowest economic strata where people have children to gain welfare benefits. Now introduce a technology that makes one feel good all the time they're awake--a "wirehead" and see hoe that combined with current welfare trends would affect population growth. You could see an almost complete end to childbirths within a decade. Can you imagine of the global population exterminated itself for love of it's wire addiction? Would make a good sci-fi story.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Tom Ligon
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by Tom Ligon »

Yep, Larry Niven is a science fiction author, and a friend of mine. He used wireheads in his "Tales of Known Space" stories, which include the Ringworld stories. Yes, this has all the potential downside as any addiction. But in Niven's view, like junkies, wireheads tended to take themselves out of the equation, and the people who thrived were the ones who didn't go that route. However, Niven supposed humanity would expand rapidly out into space. He was writing when us Boomers were growing up, so tended to think more about the population explosion than population collapse.

He also supposed, like the rat, you could get over it if somebody switched the machine off. One of his Ringworld characters, Louis Wu, was a wirehead at the start of one of the stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_% ... fiction%29

Bruce Sterling (another member of my think tank) has also used it in a somewhat different form, and Spider Robinson has used it as an addictive similar to Niven's application. Sterling these days seems to be highly concerned about a population crash, and likes to point to Russia as a prime example. He believes, once a population peaks and starts down, there is no stopping it.

I used the term in a story called "The Gardener" for a young lady who has a neural link to her wearable computer. If this were an accessory for smart phones, you'd see a scarey demand for them right now.

hanelyp
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by hanelyp »

"Medicare" coverage for stimulator implants to treat certain mental "illnesses" could be an effective way to deal with unproductive or otherwise undesirable persons.

Stimulator implants under control of overseers could be a frighteningly effective way to control subject individuals. Synchronized with media it might condition subjects to love or hate selected individuals. The reinforcement need not be applied to every exposure to the selected individuals or their image to be effective.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

Tom Ligon
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by Tom Ligon »

A cattle prod would work, too, but I guess it is less subtle. ;)

The next technical question is, do you target a positive reinforcement center such as the medial forebrain bundle, or a negative reinforcement center? Anyone familiar with control system theory knows that negative feedback is easier to use to make a stable, controllable system. But positive reinforcement, while prone to overcontrol and difficult to moderate, exists in many systems and can be very effective in achieving a very targeted goal.

I've got a species of creatures in a novel I've never finished, genetically engineered to have no positive reinforcement mechanism. This is because they were created as a slave race, using control theory as a guide. They see everything in terms of avoidance of pain rather than achieving reward. They actually pity creatures that suffer from positive reinforcement, which they have been educated to believe is a curse, but since they can't experience pleasure, they don't know what they're missing.

MSimon
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Re: Quackery or Breakthrough?

Post by MSimon »

In humans there are limits to positive reinforcement. The circuits respond less the more they are stimulated.

Some humans will actively seek pain so the rushes they get from pleasure are more intense. They empty the pleasure receptors so that filling them feels extra good.

Humans are a tad more complicated than mice.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

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