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Military Plans To Test Brain Implants To Fight Mental Disorders
NPR ^ | 27 May 2014 | Jon Hamilton

Posted on 05/27/2014 7:28:34 AM PDT by Theoria

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is launching a $26 million program to help military personnel with psychiatric disorders using electronic devices implanted in the brain.

The goal of the five-year program is to develop new ways of treating problems including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of which are common among service members who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"We've seen far too many times where military personnel have neuropsychiatric disorders and there's very few options," says Justin Sanchez, a program manager at DARPA.

DARPA is known for taking on big technological challenges, from missile defense to creating a business plan for interstellar travel. In 2013, the agency announced it would play a big role in President Obama's initiative to explore the human brain.

The new program will fund development of high-tech implanted devices able to both monitor and electrically stimulate specific brain circuits. The effort will be led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Simple brain stimulation devices are already used to help patients with problems including Parkinson's disease. But DARPA wants something much more sophisticated, Sanchez says.

"While those devices have been shown to be effective, they are very much built on concepts from the cardiac pacemaker industry," he says. "And we know that the brain is very different than the heart."

(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Military/Veterans; Science
KEYWORDS: brainimplant; darpa; implant; mentaldisorder; mentalillness; military; ptsd; whatcouldgowrong
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1 posted on 05/27/2014 7:28:34 AM PDT by Theoria
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To: Theoria

Uh huh.


2 posted on 05/27/2014 7:30:34 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (100% pure organic, free-range conservative)
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To: Theoria

This may not end well.


3 posted on 05/27/2014 7:31:21 AM PDT by struwwelpeter
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To: Theoria

The first test subject is Obama?


4 posted on 05/27/2014 7:32:22 AM PDT by crz
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To: Theoria

Borg technology! Yay!


5 posted on 05/27/2014 7:32:54 AM PDT by Free Vulcan (Vote Republican! You can vote Democrat when you're dead...)
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To: Theoria

“Hump? What hump...?”


6 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:10 AM PDT by TADSLOS (The Event Horizon has come and gone. Buckle up and hang on.)
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To: Theoria

Michael Crichton wrote a book...well, never mind.


7 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:17 AM PDT by VR-21 (Next Stop, Willoughby.)
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To: Theoria

“President Obama’s initiative to explore the human brain”

That is horrifying.


8 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:29 AM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: Theoria

Liberalism is a mental disorder.


9 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:37 AM PDT by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: Theoria

Looks like this could have come straight from Tom Horn’s website.


10 posted on 05/27/2014 7:34:52 AM PDT by Mrs.Z
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To: Theoria

Why does the word “Manchurian” come to mind?


11 posted on 05/27/2014 7:35:45 AM PDT by moovova
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To: VR-21

If you ever find Willoughby, let us know, please?


12 posted on 05/27/2014 7:35:50 AM PDT by null and void (Disarm Hollywood! No Guns for Box Office!)
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To: Theoria

I suffered through an interview with Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg about a year ago.

I remember a comment by Gates saying that the pace of technology is advancing so fast that five years down the road you will not recognize the world we live in.

Seems like this is one of those ‘advances’ he’s talking about.


13 posted on 05/27/2014 7:44:04 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: Theoria

Oh I so look forward to the news of the Electro Shock..”therapy” “device”

what a brave new world


14 posted on 05/27/2014 7:46:28 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill)
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To: crz

Isn’t there suppose to be a Brain?


15 posted on 05/27/2014 7:52:40 AM PDT by Patriot Babe
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To: Mrs.Z

Remote Control troops never disobey orders to fire on their own people. Nor do they complain about the bureaucracy over at the VA.


16 posted on 05/27/2014 7:52:41 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Theoria; COUNTrecount; Nowhere Man; FightThePower!; C. Edmund Wright; jacob allen; Travis McGee; ...

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...

17 posted on 05/27/2014 7:53:25 AM PDT by null and void (Disarm Hollywood! No Guns for Box Office!)
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To: Theoria

I want a device that stimulates the pleasure center of the brain, and I want it to have no off switch.


18 posted on 05/27/2014 7:56:45 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Early 2009 to 7/21/2013 - RIP my little girl Cathy. You were the best cat ever. You will be missed.)
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To: Patriot Babe

Maybe they think they could grow one.


19 posted on 05/27/2014 7:56:52 AM PDT by crz
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To: MichaelCorleone

Knowing Gates, he’s talking about a world with few or no people other than the elites. He’s a population control wackjob par excellence.


20 posted on 05/27/2014 7:57:04 AM PDT by Black Agnes
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