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Stanford scientists have administered electric jolts to mice in response to a pattern of brain activity in the nucleus accumbens that occurs just before "impulsive behavior" (in this study, overeating). This reportedly disrupts the impulse and the impulsive behavior, but not normal behavior. The lead author of the study says the research could lead to a brain implant that could "predict and prevent a suicide attempt, a heroin injection, a burst of binge eating or alcohol intake, or a sudden bout of uncontrolled rage":
Just imagine if you could predict and prevent a burst of binge eating or alcohol intake, a heroin injection, a sudden bout of uncontrolled rage or a suicide attempt. The world would be a better place.
Long journeys start with first steps. In a study [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712214114] [DX] published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stanford researchers led by neurosurgeon Casey Halpern, MD, have identified, both in mice and in a human subject, a signature pattern of electrical activity in a small but important deep-brain region called the nucleus accumbens just a second or two before a burst of impulsive behavior.
The nucleus accumbens is the hub of the brain's reward circuitry, which evolution has engineered to reinforce survival-promoting actions by inducing pleasure in anticipation or performance of those actions. The researchers showed in mice that supplying a small electrical jolt to the nucleus accumbens as soon as the electrical signature manifested there stopped the mice from overindulging in fatty food — without messing up the rest of their natural activities.
"Impulses are normal and absolutely necessary for survival," Halpern said when I interviewed him for our news release on the new study. "They convert our feelings about what's rewarding into concrete action to obtain food, sex, sleep and defenses against rivals or predators."
Which dystopian novel do you want to compare it to?
Also at NPR.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @03:43PM (4 children)
I often begin working on hobby projects impulsively. Perhaps that's unhealthy and I should develop better time management skills than suddenly binge working for 5+ hours, but nonetheless hundreds of hours of work otherwise wouldn't have occurred.
This doesn't matter in the case of voluntary use, where one can easily disable it should it cause problems, but would be an utter disaster should it be mandated for parolees/felons/domestic abusers/drug addicts as part of mandatory treatment/&c.
This kind of device was an early premise of Zootopia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkJGLCleFmI [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnnVhvhHeNs [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 19 2017, @03:54PM (3 children)
This method used by the Stanford researchers could be very broad now but end up refined later.
For example, if you want an implant that stops people from eating too much, but not prevent drug abuse, violent outbursts, or creative moments. Is it going to be that hard to detect that the impulse is related to overeating? Sure, it will likely be more complicated than if (user_is_shoveling_food_in_mouth) {checkForImpulsiveOvereating();}. But this is just a proof of concept.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @04:08PM
But is such a tempting target for politicians who mean well that extreme wariness is warranted.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:25PM (1 child)
Or, say, keep the creativity but give up the road rage, drug addiction, and being fat?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:49PM
Initial versions will be prescribed for the specific problem someone faces. So if they have an eating disorder, or heroin addiction, they get it tuned for just that. I wouldn't expect them to be used to control a wide variety of behaviors simultaneously.
When will it be made mandatory?
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