Eps 28: I want to kill people cuz they say the brain is not a computer
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Allison Lowe
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Next, scientists tested how well BrainExs system preserved the general structure of the brain tissue. First, Scientists checked if BrainEx was capable of restoring circulation to the brain, including to its tiny blood vessels.
This was the first demonstration of a technique developed by Team Nectome, called Aldehyde Stable Cryopreserve, in human brains. A different method has been shown to work well for preservation of an entire brain down to nanometer levels, including a connectome, a network of synapses connecting neurons. For Nectomes procedure to work, the brain must be in good condition.
The advantage of a cadaveric method is that the brain can be studied in depth, but an obvious drawback is that the brain is not alive anymore. Key Takeaways Studying cadavers brains may yield discoveries about brain structures, but the studies are limited by the fact that the brains are no longer active. Scientists are only beginning to explore this region of the brain - and even fewer are studying criminals brains.
Scientists studying the field think that the patterns in the brain, as well as the genetic make-up, are not sufficient to turn any one into a psychopath. While no studies exist that point to a minimum number of parts of the brain that we need, there are case studies that show people who are missing large parts of their brains, who are still able to function. In humans, a few medical case studies indicate that a brain is capable of rebounding. In some, there is imbalance--another part of the brain is not doing its job--perhaps because a person has had a brain injury, or was born with one.
James Fallon is obviously simplifying, but Fallon says that orbital cortex puts the brakes on another section of the brain called amygdala, which is involved with aggression and appetite. Another section of the brain is the orbital cortex, an area Fallon and other scientists think is involved in moral behaviors, ethical decision-making, and impulse control. Importantly, James Fallon says that journey into his brain has changed his perspective on nature and nurture. He once believed genes and the functioning of the brain could define all of us.
James Fallon says the evidence is mounting that the brains of some people make them predisposed to violence, and psychopathic tendencies can run in families. After learning about James Fallons familys violent history, he examined images and compared them with those from the brains of psychopathic individuals. Michael Rich, a pediatrician, said that most of what happens onscreen provides an impoverished stimulus for a developing brain, when compared to reality. Studying a brain disease in humans without an intact brain, says Alisson Mootris, is like studying a pancreas without producing insulin.
Muotri wants her organoid system to at least somewhat compare with a human brain, so she can study human disorders and discover treatments. At some point, Muotris Alison says, organoids may even help researchers answer questions about how the brain produces conscious states. Lancaster and most other researchers believe that something like an activated pig brain will have far better odds of reaching consciousness than an organoid.
On the technical level, Koch says it would not be much of a leap, because both pigs and humans have big, intricately folded brains. All of those ideas are motivated by the notion that brains can transcend body constraints. Decomposing the function of every brain part separately will not help in understanding how a brain does a lot at once. So this information would have to somehow run like a computer program inside a brain, or a robot.
The ideas about electric nerve circuits, Shannons theories of information encoding, and questions of how information gets stored in a brain have led many to think there is an isomorphism between the way computers work and how a brain works. Key Takeaways The brain is a biological organ, not a digital computer. The growing human brain is constantly making neural connections, pruning out those not used, and using digital media plays a positive role in this process, says pediatrician Michael Rich. Excessive play, Rich says, seems to trigger the brains reward system.
There is debate about whether cryonic technology like this damages the brain, possibly beyond repair. One method, mostly used on animals, is to insert probes into the brain in order to examine responses from particular neurons. When the study participants are asked to perform tasks while they are in the scanner, the images may reveal which parts of the brain are associated with which types of tasks. The team doing work on pig brains, led by neuroscientist Nenad Sestan Neuroscientist Nenad Sestan, is trying to discover new ways of rejuvenating the organs, rather than creating consciousness.