Do we have the current technology to do so or will we in a decade or so ?
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Do we have the current technology to do so or will we in a decade or so ?
We already do it naturally.
Neuroplasticity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If you are asking about how it could be manipulated or directed, I don't know that.
Yeah that's what I mean. Manipulate and direct. I was doing some neuroscience research and it talked about severing, rearranging, and rewiring the synaptic formations in the brain and how we don't have the technology to do so. But that article was about 6 years ago so I was wondering with the advancements in technology will we be able to in the future.
I suppose one possible method, when you take the simple premise that synapses between neurons that aren't utilised much, tend to be 'rewired', is if you were able to identify certain pathways that are responsible for something you're interested. Then if you make the neurons light sensitive, and you shine a laser on them, you can stimulate activity, so you could theoretically increase the strength of connections between certain neurons. Though it's still a pretty crude method of rewiring synapses between certain neurons. If you want to learn more about this method, look up optogenetics. But in the end, you're still relying on the brain's natural method of rewiring itself in response to the usage of certain pathways.
Yeh, as I described, you can manually make certain neurons fire, and this would have the secondary effect of causing a change in synaptic formation.
20 years. aka I have no idea.
Last edited by newuser; September 14th, 2014 at 03:37 PM.
Well not 20 years, I'm graduating this spring with a degree in Neuroscience and going to Engineering school to peruse Neural Engineering.
Curiosity is right, neuronal electrode stimulation is becoming a very common treatment for TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) patients. Its a very effective method, specially right after a brain injury. After the neuronal-inflammation has subdued, that have not died via necrosis are, strive to rewire neural networks that have been lost. Many times Macrophages in the brain tissue will "eat up" some of the very weak and damaged brain cells. However, with electrode stimulation it allows patients to save more neurons, and promote neuroplasticity.
Neuro-engineering, is some what in its dark ages. However, engineers and doctors have implemented synthetic neural tissue, and several devices in patients that been "helpful". Most of these applications have been implemented in motor neurons.
Neural networking, synthetic networking and other devices have been implemented on monkeys. In our university, researchers have been successfully able to introduce stimulators in around spinal cord damaged patients, where they found improvement in patient's mobility and progressive improvement in patients overall neurological health.
Even more interestingly, micro-electric networking devices have also been implemented in patients with severe brain damage that has improved their health as well. I'm not exactly sure on all the details, but I do read a lot of scientific and engineering journals in Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, and Neuroscience.
Well the goal of Neuroscience and Neural Engineering both the science and the engineering. Is not to rewire neural networks that are working fine. The goal is to stimulate growth in damaged neural networks. Neural networks are very very complex systems, and neuroscience many times is still trying to connect the dots. Rearranging them doesn't seem to be very helpful in my opinion, unless something is very wrong, I imagine it would also cause adverse effects if done wrong.
However with brain damage and neural damage. Neuroscience tries to come up with better devices to track it, image it, and teat it. Some of the ways of doing this is neural stimulation. They have been able to do a lot so far as oppose to before where we couldn't do anything.
I mean some of things have been preformed successfully at very small scales. But, what would be the purpose of rewiring neurons? Why would you want to change something that's working fine? Neural networking synthetic applications and tissue engineering are very different than rewiring neural networks. This would not serve us any purpose, if something is not wrong. To cure depression? schizophrenia? I'm sure there has been research done on something like that, but like I said neural networks are extremely complex, and connecting the dots is extremely difficult. I couldn't give you an estimated time scale on when..
Maybe I've misunderstood you. Do you mean changing neural networks for or fixing neural networks, when you say rewiring? Scientists and engineers are much more interested in fixing damaged ones than rewiring healthy ones. Atleast it seems to me. Therefore I can't give you in exact time scale, because it would depend on research interest and time spent putting in the work, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of time spent on rewiring healthy neural networks.
However, neuroplasticity is very real phenomena. Naturally, with your thought patterns your consistently rewiring your own neurons.
Yeah well, there is just not enough focus in that area. I'm sure some lab somewhere in America or the world is doing something of the sorts. However, there is just not enough research on *changing, something that is working fine. Most research focus is on treating neurological disorders, damage, injuries, degeneration, imaging, building better devices, modeling applications, better medications, studying, and figuring out how the brain works. Thus, because there isn't enough focus on it, it may be in the darker stages of development for a very long time.
Electroshock therapy induces memory loss which may be severing of synaptic connections. Re training causes new connections. This is pretty crude stuff, almost at the level of "hit 'em on the head with a mallet". There is some evidence that this has been tried by criminals to make wittnesses "forget". It is not fool proof. Memories tend to come back. Fragmented and unreliable but they come back.
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