March 12, 2003

OH, BRAVE NEW WORLD WITH SUCH RATS IN IT.

World's first brain prosthesis revealed (newscientist.com)

The world's first brain prosthesis - an artificial hippocampus - is about to be tested in California. Unlike devices like cochlear implants, which merely stimulate brain activity, this silicon chip implant will perform the same processes as the damaged part of the brain it is replacing.

The prosthesis will first be tested on tissue from rats' brains, and then on live animals. If all goes well, it will then be tested as a way to help people who have suffered brain damage due to stroke, epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease.

First, this is cool. Second, it is somewhat comforting to those of us who believe that there is more to man than flesh and blood that the best that could be done is mimic the brain, without understanding it.

Posted by David Cohen at March 12, 2003 7:02 PM
Comments

It's also comforting to those of us who force ourselves to read The Nation
from time to time -- it gives us hope that those writers and editors will some day think rationally.

Posted by: Chris Badeaux at March 13, 2003 8:16 AM

A brain prothesis in California ? Wow, does this mean that there is a cure for the Berkeley syndrome ?

Posted by: Peter at March 13, 2003 8:29 AM

That's a very odd comment. Learning how to

mimic a part of the brain is how you go about

understanding it.



Is our understanding of brains -- even of rats

-- superior now to what it was during the

days of Aquinas? Of course it is.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 13, 2003 12:29 PM
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