Mental enhancement through neuroimaging

In The Neuro Revolution, Zack Lynch contends that there is a coming revolution in neuroimaging technology that could be on the same order as the industrial revolution and the information revolution.

1. Neuroimaging for truth detection
Perhaps the most important application area for neuroimaging is truth detection. According to Joel Huizenga, CEO of NoLieMRI, the annual worldwide market is $36 billion for truth verification. The U.S. government does 40,000 lie detection tests per day, and the Supreme Court acceptance standard is results that have a 95% chance of accuracy. Businesses buy 400,000 tests per year, some of which only have 50% accuracy. FMRIs are much better lie detectors than current tests. Mechanically, more blood goes to other parts of the brain which are related to deception when someone is lying. Explicit lie detection is one demand area but truth verification is much broader. The notion of brain fingerprinting can be used to detect the presence or absence of information in the brain, for example testing knowledge of crime scene details.

2. Neuroimaging for mental illness assessment and rehabilitation
A second important application area for neuroimaging is mental illness identification and rehabilitation. A government-sponsored survey published in 2005 found that almost half of Americans meet the criteria for a mental illness at some point in their lives, and that 25% met the criteria for having a mental illness within the past year. The categories of mental illness assessed were anxiety disorders (panic, post-traumatic stress disorders); mood disorders (major depression, bipolar disease); impulse control disorders (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder); and substance abuse.

In 1990 there were 1.1 million people in U.S. prisons; sixteen years later, in 2006, the number had nearly doubled to 2.1 million. There is a high rate of drug abuse in individuals who are arrested for crime in cities. One claim is that many are self-treating a mental condition (any variety of unproductive mental states) with the primitive tools of drugs and alcohol. 30% of state offenders and 40% of federal offenders are brought on drug charges. Further, a significant percent of inmates have some sort of brain damage or suboptimal brain issue. In the long term, it might be possible to identify and automatically rehabilitate these issues in both at-risk populations and the populace as a whole to improve ongoing mental health.

Conclusions
For fMRI usage to become widespread and routine, there would need to be improvements in several areas including cost, user experience, science findings, and clinical use. However, over time, the wider use of neuroimaging could potentially have a significant impact on human interaction and mental health. There could be interesting cultural changes if there is progress towards a truth-based culture where deception is known and improved levels of mental wellness are sustained across the populace.

Human augmentation via bacterial biome

Human augmentation of physical and mental capabilities by bringing electronics on board seems a likely future. The early stages have already been realized, 10% of Americans are cyborgs today in the sense of having synthetic items permanently implanted: hearing aids, teeth, pacemakers, hip and knee replacements, RFID chips etc. Cochlear implants interfacing with hearing cognition for deaf children are routine. Neuroengineering research has been progressing in the implementation of electroencephalography-based computer controllers. Brain cap video game headsets may become the norm.

There are at least three ways for achieving human-electronic interfaces; physical implants, wearables and a third as yet unconsidered possibility, exploiting the human bacterial biome.

The 1,000 trillion bacteria that are part of each human (10x the number of human cells) could be an ideal augmentation substrate.

There are trillions of them, they are already on board and pass easily and unobtrusively in and out of the human. They are easy to obtain, test and experiment on in the lab. They are expendable. Functionality could be enabled individually, or distributed over the 500 – 100,000 classes of bacteria.

Augmentation applications: communications and processing
The two most important augmentation applications are communications and processing, both of which could potentially be conducted via the human’s microscopic bacteria. Communication is required between the bacteria, which they are already doing to some extent, and externally, to the Internet using wireless, Bluetooth or some other, possibly to be developed protocol. What a vast improvement on board connectivity would be, never having to depend on the vagaries of PC wireless cards, modems and Bluetooth devices.

The second main application is processing, the initial killer app being a memory aid. Coordinating the bacterial biome into a distributed biocomputer for searching, downloading, accessing and delivering information would be an obvious first goal. Other applications could include continuous lifelogging perhaps (literally) through eye cam bacteria, personalized biosensing and remediation of the external environment as it interfaces with humans, virtual reality and nutrient and waste cycling. Electricity from the body could possibly facilitate these computations.

Easy upgrade and maintenance
The continual turnover, ingress and egress of bacteria in humans means that upgrade cycles and retirement of dead or non-functioning elements could occur seamlessly. Bacterial updates could be printed regularly from a 3d printer or automatically dispensed in smarthome air or water. Mechanically, the updates might be delivered through the air, in the shower, or by a nutrient blanket during sleep.

Nanobot intermediaries
Enhancing the human bacterial biome would really just be extending the life support functionality it already provides and could be a nice intermediary step to the more robust bionanodevices and nanobots envisioned in molecular manufacturing. Existing bacteria could be enhanced, much of the human microflora does not appear to be doing anything anyway, or additional bacteria could be engineered and brought on board.