iPlant talk at the International Neuromodulation Society 2009 conference

Chris prepares his talk at the International Neuromodulation Society 2009 conference in Seoul, South Korea.

Conference URL (the talk was at 16:20):
http://www.neuromodulation.com/mc/page.do?sitePageId=99194&orgId=inns

The PowerPoint presentation used in the talk:
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcdz9gxp_914d9bhqkg3

The poster presented at the conference:
http://www.iplant.eu/INS2009.pdf

Blog posts from the conference:
http://brainimplant.blogspot.com/2009/09/seoul-4.html

The Chinese iPlant starting page:
http://www.iplant.eu/index-cn.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• INS2009
• neuromodulation
• iPlant
• brain implant
• deep brain stimulation
• science communication
• public participation
• reward
• brain stimulation
• artificial motivation
• brain
• motivation
• attention
• transhumanism
• science outreach

[iPlantChannel]

I strongly agree. Also, people with compulsions currently benefit the most from DBS to the reward system (see site for references), so it's not as far-fetched as it might seem.

[SavageDogg38]

I don't know. I do agree that any research should be open but I can't help but to feel skeptical about this whole endeavor but it must be researched if their is even the slightest thought that it could in some way help people or even save lives. Good luck to you and your research. May I give a suggestion? Maybe this technology could help addicts, I could see that for sure. Better than intoxicating the buddy with drugs damaging the liver and kidneys... Maybe?

[iPlantChannel]

Users who nevertheless feel a strong need to cheat would have to break the access control encryption of their own iPlant. This encryption would be in place to prevent all forms of unauthorized access and would have to be very sophisticated and heavily enforced.

[iPlantChannel]

Hey, thanks for commenting. 1) Rewarding brain stimulation (RBS) is different from heroin: it's brief (<1s), it's delivered throughout the rewarded task (e.g. with each pull on an exercise machine) and in the case of iPlants the electrical current would be as weak as possible. 2) There's no intention to stop delivering RBS and hope users would continue: RBS for relevant tasks would be provided indefinitely. 3) People are not rats but the reward systems of the two species are remarkably similar.

[SavageDogg38]

I have watched all your videos here and I agree this research needs to be open but I see failure already. What your saying is no different than giving someone heroin after doing something rewarding as if they will later without the heroin, repeat the same task. This is false however because they will instead seek out more heroin. People are not rats, they will know where the reward came from and seek it out. It is unavoidable. I repeat, we are not RATS!