Future Now
The IFTF Blog
All About the Brain
We've been busy in the Health Team getting ready for our Health Care 2020 conference this Tuesday and Wednesday and one area, among many, that we're exploring is neurointereventions, which we describe as the growing trend of treating the brain as a site for prevention, augmentation and enhancement. So I can't say that I was entirely surprised when I visited MIT's Technology Review and found the site highlighting several innovations around neuroscience.
And, in fact, these interventions range from strict treatments to enhancements. For example, a group of neurologists are beginning to experiment with targeted ultrasound waves to treat epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders by "penetrat[ing] the skull and activat[ing] or silenc[ing] brain cells" in less invasive ways that traditional surgeries or newer techniques like deep brain stimulation.
Elsewhere, the movement from treatment to enhancement is already taking place. A startup biomedical company is developing a "neural prosthesis" based on surgical devices used to help neurosurgeons plan treatment for severe epilepsy patients by directly monitoring neurological activity. The new devices, as they're being developed, would "allow paralyzed patients to control a computer and perhaps prosthetic limbs and other devices."
Other interest in neurological enhancements and prostheses is coming from unusual, though not entirely surprising source: The U.S. Military. Writing in Science Progress about a new report titled Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications, Jonathan Moreno notes some of the potential applications:
Imagine for example that there was an advance in understanding of brain chemistry that helped predict susceptibility to post-traumatic stress. Combat soldiers might well welcome such a screen if it meant avoiding operational failures that could result in harm to others in their unit, even if their own career opportunities were impaired as a result...
Neural indicators of different learning and decision making styles could help in designing training regimens and duty assignments. Growing understanding of the neural basis of performance under conditions like sleep and nutrition deprivation and stress could identify interventions to ameliorate performance degradation, like pharmaceuticals for cognitive enhancement and improved delivery of nutrients to the brain.
Moreno notes--and I agree--that brain enhancements can easily get overhyped--but given the wide variety of innovative experiments and efforts, it's hard to imagine that the brain won't become a more important focal point of medicine and health in the coming decade.