This mobile brain-monitoring device includes a wand and backpack that works in conjunction with a neural implant. It can also be paired with virtual reality goggles.
Topalovic et al./Neuron
Posted on 09/18/2020 8:23:45 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Call it neuroscience on the go. Scientists have developed a backpack that tracks and stimulates brain activity as people go about their daily lives. The advance could allow researchers to get a sense of how the brain works outside of a laboratory—and how to monitor diseases such as Parkinson’s and post-traumatic stress disorder in real-world settings.
The technology is “an inspiring demonstration of what’s possible” with portable neuroscience equipment, says Timothy Spellman, a neurobiologist at Weill Cornell Medicine who was not involved with the work. The backpack and its vast suite of tools, he says, could broaden the landscape for neuroscience research to study the brain while the body is in motion.
Typically, when scientists want to scan the brain, they need a lot of room—and a lot of money. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners, which detect activity in various regions of the brain, are about the size of a pickup truck and can cost more than $1 million. And patients must stay still in the machine for about 1 hour to ensure a clear, readable scan.
Approaches like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that zap the brain—often to treat severe depression—are also not portable; patients must sit still and upright in a lab for about 30 minutes while a large coil delivers magnetic pulses through their scalp to electrically activate neurons.
Searching for a better way, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), have developed what they call the mobile deep brain recording and stimulation platform.
This mobile brain-monitoring device includes a wand and backpack that works in conjunction with a neural implant. It can also be paired with virtual reality goggles.
Topalovic et al./Neuron
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencemag.org ...
That will fit right in at Bezerkly
Wish that neuroscientists were smart enough in discovering an effective treatment for peripheral neuropathy (painful feet).
So far there are numerous snakeoil salesmen who advertise to have this knowledge, but none do.
I highly doubt if this machine will work on democrats.
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