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Posted Monday, June 30, 2003
Stepping Forward: Transcendent Liberty Smart thoughts from CCLE: Heralded as a landmark victory for gay rights, last week’s Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas struck down Texas’ “Homosexual Conduct” law, which criminalized consensual sex between homosexual adults. The Supreme Court’s express recognition of a fundamental “liberty of the person in both its spatial and more transcendent dimensions,” that among other things protects consensual, private sexual conduct between adults, leaves room for a future recognition of cognitive liberty. “At the heart of liberty,” wrote Justice Kennedy, “is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Posted Thursday, June 26, 2003
A Relative Emotional Gauge Just as people experience physical pain differently, so too do people experience emotional pain differently. Relative physical pain indexes are now proven enough to show that different people feel physical pain very differently. Neurotechnoloy will enable a similiar relative understanding of individual differences in mental health. A Relative Emotional Gauge (REG) would help people better empathize with each other or understand the depth of their depression or height of their joy relative to other people's experiences. So how happy are you today? I'm an 8! Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2003 Exceptional Thoughts Daily, weekly, monthly and annually great thoughts of produced. Here are a few of the recent best: Daily: Richard Gayle's Living Code blog
Weekly: Science Magazine
Monthly: Seed Magazine (June/July print version)
Annual (books):
Posted Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Neurotechnology Business Reports James Cavuoto has been kind enough to provide me with a monthly subscription to Neurotech Business Reports. Although I think they define neurotechnology too narrowly, primarily focusing on electro-mechanical neural prostheses, the information contained in these monthly updates is relevant and concise for any neurotech investor. Of particular interest in June:
Posted Monday, June 23, 2003
Stimulating a Smarter You? Yesterday's New York Times magazine piece, Savant for a Day, describes how transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is not only being tested as a potential treatment for mental illnesses like depression but also as a way to enhance human cognition. Allan Snyder, Chair of the Centre for the Mind has performed "TMS dozens of times on university students, measuring its effect on their ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental skills." Like most emerging neurotechnologies, TMS shows promise but there is a long road ahead. Posted Friday, June 20, 2003
Disturb in Medium Doses Please What conditions maximize biological diversity? The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis suggests that diversity is highest in ecologies that undergo intermediate levels of disturbances. Intermediate levels in terms of the frequency, scale, intensity and type of disturbances. (figure. Several years ago, I spent some time in Costa Rica trying to find evidence that would support this hypothesis. I was searching of something extra/different in the ecology that might explain the exceptional diversity found in one of the most species rich areas on Earth. I found what I was looking for: lianas, tropical vines. Lianas are the longest living plant in the rainforest. They outlive all rainforest trees several times over and can grow thousands of feet long. Their longevity and length means that lianas are often found linking the canopies of several large trees. The additional connectedness that lianas bring to the rainforest means that when one tree falls, multiple trees follow, creating medium size gaps that average about 50 meters in diameter throughout the forest. At any one time about 10% of the forest is in this new gap state. These medium size gaps are unique to rainforests that have lianas. These gaps create open islands with new edges and niches for species to invade and inhabit. In this small, but important way, lianas contribute to maximizing species diversity in tropical rainforests. Posted Thursday, June 19, 2003
Broad Support for "Y" Men Are Men Sex in humans is determined by the fact men carry one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, while women carry two Xs. David Page of the Whitehead Institute has recently shown that Y chromosomes can repair its own genes in an experiment that denied the Y chromosome the benefits of recombining with the X. The result was that the Y recombined with itself. Dr. Page's team also found 78 active genes on the Y, contradicting earlier impressions of the chromosome as being a genetic wasteland apart from its male-determining gene. In related news, MIT and Harvard announced today the formation of The Broad Institute whose purpose will be to fulfill the promise of the Human Genome Project for medicine. As Charles M. Vest, president of MIT noted, “This venture will be an important nexus of Boston and Cambridge’s contributions in the future. We are deeply grateful to Eli and Edye Broad for their visionary commitment ($100m immediately) and for their extraordinary leadership as philanthropists." Posted Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Faster than a Speeding Gene Most people forget that we've only mapped the complete genome of a few people. Although significant, the real breakthrough will come from population level analysis of genetic variation. The International HapMap Project is doing just this. Haplotypes are genetic sequence blocks that are shared by many people. Once these haplotypes are mapped it will form a powerful shortcut to identifying inherited gene sequences linked to disorders such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Biomedical breakthroughs extending life and health are closer than we think. The aggressive timeline for the Human Genome Project started in 1990 was 15 years. It was completed in 10. What projects are being worked on now that will move much faster than most expect? Posted Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Economics from the Neurons Up Today's NYTimes piece, Brain Experts Now Follow the Money, highlights the growing enthusiasm for the emerging discipline of neuroeconomics. So why is neuroeconomics so exciting? Economics, at its core, sees human behavior as the outcome of a rational process of decision-making, wherein individuals weigh the costs and benefits of actions to maximize utility (i.e. happiness, profit). But as economists and the rest of us know, human behavior is not this simple. Instead outcomes are the product of an unstable and unrational complex of reflex actions, impulses, instincts, habits, customs, fashions and hysteria. Since utility could not be measured objectively concepts like expected utility were devised to give economists an easy way to avoid the messy reality of human psychology. Economists then spent decades developing mathematical techniques to make economic predictions without having to measure thoughts or feelings directly. Neureconomics is about to flip this age-old problem on its head. Today neuroeconomists are on the verge of being able to measure expected utility from the actual actions of an individual's neurons in a person's brain. No longer technologically constrained -- brain scanning technologies and clever experimental designs promise to transform economics into a science where one can develop theories that actually predict the neural correlations occuring in one's brain. For four days over this past weekend, leading neuroeconomists Paul Glimcher, Paul Zak, David Heeger, Kevin McCabe, and Vernon Smith converged at the Gruter Institute's annual meeting to discuss and show data that the brain employs a formal representation of relative expected utility for decision making and that this formal representation is computed as the product of utility. Building upon the ground breaking work of Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith who received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, neuroeconomics is just getting started but should eventually provide us with unprecedented understanding of how Homo economicus actually makes decisions. For more insight, see Paul Glimcher's new book -- Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics Posted Monday, June 16, 2003
Supreme Court Upholds Right to Refuse Mind-Altering Drugs The protection of our cognitive liberty was upheld today in no small part to CCLE's Amicus Brief which argues that forced medication infringes fundamental liberty. The United States Supreme Court upheld the right to refuse unwanted psychotropic medication in its landmark decision in Sell v. United States. Ruling in favor of a St. Louis dentist who resisted government attempts to force medicate him with antipsychotic drugs, the Court held that while involuntary medication solely for trial competence purposes may be appropriate in some instances, those instances would likely be “rare.” Glen Boire, who wrote the amicus brief said, "They made a good ruling, but they missed a major opportunity to recognize that thought is, at least partly, rooted in brain chemistry and that giving the government broad powers to directly manipulate the brain chemistry of a non-violent citizen would go against our nation’s most cherished values." He continued, “Emerging neurotechnology from pharmaceuticals to brain scanners are making consciousness more accessible and manipulable than ever before,” said Boire, “the court had a chance to update legal thinking about cognition in a way could have been very relevant now and in the coming decades,” said Boire. Posted Friday, June 13, 2003
Free Will or Free Willy? PlumpJack's delicious duck dinner had a hard time competing with tonight's table conversation concerning free will. For about two hours Paul Zak, Paul Glimcher, Howard Fields, Oliver Goodenough, Margaret Gruter, Kevin McCabe, Morris Hoffman, and myself wrestled with randomness, arrows in time, coin flipping, converging utility maps, selective evolutionary tendencies, cheek pinching, dopamine neurons, motivation, oxytocin, synesthesia and yes, even whales. Today's talks were outstanding and when time permits and connection speeds are faster the data dump will flow. Until then, it's all good food for thought and pleasant dreams. Posted Thursday, June 12, 2003
Independent Global Neurotech. Institute The best way humanity has figured out how to build credible knowledge is by using the scientific method. One key element in this process is testing the hypothesis under scrutiny. Well-designed tests can reveal new truths, while poorly designed ones can spread false hope. Advances in neurotechnology (from brain imaging to biochips) represent new tools that can create valuable new data for anyone performing tests centered on being human. I see a significant surge in the need to provide researchers across all the humanities, social and life sciences with open access to the latest advancements in neurotechnology to help test old and new hypotheses. To ensure sufficient capacity exists to support this research, I will be talking with many of the Gruter participants at the Sensory Systems and Judgment in Law conference this weekend about the creation of an Independent Global Neurotechnology Institute where researchers across all disciplines (especially those researchers who currently don't have access to this type of technology or who are unfamiliar with its value) will be able to compete for access to the most advanced neurotechnology. Working in cooperation with the leading instrument makers, the IGNI will allow researchers to push the envelope of mental science. IGNI's goals include improving the quality and interrelatedness of imaging and biochip research in order to help set standards for the research community at large. The first phase of the five year project requires a $5M endowment to: purchase the latest tools, find a smart location, support initial research grants and begin the the development of educational seminars for emerging disciplines like neuroeconomics, neurosociology and neuroaesthetics. The organizational model would be similar to how the Santa Fe Institute for Complex Systems research has evolved. If you are interested in learning more about the IGNI, please email me.
Test Thyself, Know Thyself Here are a few tests that have popped up recently that are interesting and fun:
Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2003
2003 "Nobel" in Geography My friend and graduate advisor, Allen J. Scott at UCLA was just awarded the 2003 Vautrin Lud International Award for Geography (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Geography). The annual prize is awarded to the person who has made outstanding contributions to the field of geography and has achieved a wide international reputation as an outstanding scholar. He will be awarded the prize on October 3 at the International Festival of Geography at Saint-Die-des-Vosges in northeastern France. On a related note: Jared Diamond was recently appointed to the UCLA Geography Department.
Sensory Systems and Judgment in Law Along with previously mentioned Gruter talks, the following presentations are scheduled for this Saturday and Sunday: Economics, Law and Neurology
Sex and Law
Childhood and Development
Dispute Resolution
Scanning and Neural Activity
Property
More to come on Monday with a full report all next week. Posted Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Brain Humor A bit of laughter today: "I used to think that the brain was the most fascinating part of the body...then I realized 'look who's telling me that." - Emo Phillips (thanks Clay) Posted Monday, June 9, 2003
Neurotechnology is Driving Neuroethics This month's IEEE Spectrum has an excellent article, Neurotechnology: Bioethics and the Brain, that describes how rapid advancements in brain imaging technologies will have significant implications for society in the relative near future. To make their point, the authors describe how one of their colleagues has recently used fMRI scans to show highly significant correlations between lying and truth telling and the metabolic activity in the region of the brain important to paying attention and monitoring errors. The article highlights several important neuroethical issues:
Neurotechnology will never be 100% deterministic but it will provide some very powerful predictive information, much more than most people currently want to believe. Later this week I will be joining the Gruter Institute for its annual neuroethics conference. The first day includes the following talks:
I look forward to exploring the above issues and extending the discussion to include the societal implications of human performance enhancing neuroceuticals. Posted Friday, June 6, 2003
NYC - Neuro York City I spent the past five days in the ultimate playground for neurons. Whether you're looking to excite your senses (sights, sounds, smells), emotions (love, joy, sadness), or your more cerebral side (facts, learning, business), NYC has it all. NYC's greatest asset is its people. Conversations are smart, witty and high value. In a city of 8 million people they have to be. This trip I had the opportunity to have some exceptional conversations with many insightful people, here are a few:
Posted Thursday, June 5, 2003
Neurons Love to "Kiss and Run" The transfer of information between nerve cells occurs when chemicals called neurotransmitters are released into the synapse, the junction between neurons. Electrical impulses in the neuron cause tiny vesicles (graphic) loaded with neurotransmitters to be released into the synapse. Today's Nature reports on a new technique that researchers have created to image the movement of individual vesicles after they have released their neurotransmitter cargo. The new technique helps answer questions like the rate at which synaptic vesicles are recycled which helps illuminate how much information nerve cells can transmit. There are three distinct ways that a "used vesicle" can be recycled from the surface of the nerve cell once it has released its cargo:
"The optical recording technique devised by Stevens and Gandhi involves genetically modifying a gene for one type of vesicle protein to incorporate a special form of green fluorescent protein. This modified fluorescent protein, developed by other researchers, does not fluoresce under acidic conditions normally present in vesicles fully loaded with neurotransmitter. However, when the vesicle releases its payload, the interior becomes less acidic and the vesicle glows a bright green." Posted Tuesday, June 3, 2003
Punctuated Cognition Have you ever suddenly realized that you’re routinely doing complex tasks that flummoxed you a few years ago? That’s what it feels like to cross a cognitive threshold. According to organizational psychologist Elliot Jaques, who died in March, skills and capabilities seem to accumulate through a kind of punctuated equilibrium, wherein human ability to deal with complexity crosses a cognitive threshold every 15 years. It will be interesting to see how the emergence of cogniceuticals will influence this observed rule. (Thanks to Art Kleiner and Ross Mayfield for bringing this to my attention.) Found your way down here on the page and looking for more? Check out our archives. Copyright 2003 Zack Lynch. All rights reserved. Terms of use |
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