Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk(nature.com)
nature.com
Brain implants allow paralysed monkeys to walk
http://www.nature.com/news/brain-implants-allow-paralysed-monkeys-to-walk-1.20967
172 comments
I would assume it's because monkeys are more intelligent than the animals we tend to eat; cows, chickens, sheep & pigs.
Also, intentionally paralysing a creature, leaving it to live in that condition, and then performing experimental surgery/procedures on it is significantly different than slaughtering it.
Whilst I appreciate the scientists mean well, and I do understand how this could benefit humanity; this sort of research still seems unethical to me, and at the very least makes me feel sick.
As a software developer and reverse engineer, this feels like hacking anyway. It's not particularly scientific just to "capture and replay" data without much understanding of how it works.
Also, intentionally paralysing a creature, leaving it to live in that condition, and then performing experimental surgery/procedures on it is significantly different than slaughtering it.
Whilst I appreciate the scientists mean well, and I do understand how this could benefit humanity; this sort of research still seems unethical to me, and at the very least makes me feel sick.
As a software developer and reverse engineer, this feels like hacking anyway. It's not particularly scientific just to "capture and replay" data without much understanding of how it works.
The intelligence argument is nonsense. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Describe the treatment of livestock (pigs, chickens, cows) but frame it as something that is happening to dogs and you'll drive hundreds of thousands of outraged meat eaters to signing a petition. The reason is cognitive dissonance, we're taught from the moment we can understand that it's okay to farm animals and very few people ever really think about the consequences of that. To be humane means "having or showing compassion or benevolence" which is about as far from how you can describe the treatment of livestock that you can get. To suggest that the the real problem with livestock farming is the slaughter demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of where the real problems lie, slaughter is one of the most humane parts of livestock farming.
Dairy cows spend more than half a decade being repeatedly raped and abused until they're slaughtered because their bodies have been destroyed by the milking process, and they spend that half a decade having their young snatched away from them over and over again. If having the emotional intelligence to mourn your stolen young isn't enough to justify ending the inhumane treatment then it's certainly not intelligence that humans care about.
If this research is unethical then learn about gestation crates, which immobilise pigs for months of their pregnancy.
Dairy cows spend more than half a decade being repeatedly raped and abused until they're slaughtered because their bodies have been destroyed by the milking process, and they spend that half a decade having their young snatched away from them over and over again. If having the emotional intelligence to mourn your stolen young isn't enough to justify ending the inhumane treatment then it's certainly not intelligence that humans care about.
If this research is unethical then learn about gestation crates, which immobilise pigs for months of their pregnancy.
> To be humane means "having or showing compassion or benevolence" which is about as far from how you can describe the treatment of livestock that you can get.
The problem I have with this is that like in so many other subjects, a too general term has been used to describe a specific type of practice. Traditional farming is very different than factory farming (which seems to be what you are describing), and there are many levels between them. You may still have problems with how a traditional farm is run, and that's fine, you can present those. But presenting features of factory farming as problems with "livestock farming" implies that all livestock farming is like that, and that's untrue.
If you believe all livestock farming is immoral, please use, or at least add justification for the cases where it's not factory farming if you are going to call out all livestock farming. If you are instead specifically targeting factory farming, please endeavor to accurately label it.
The problem I have with this is that like in so many other subjects, a too general term has been used to describe a specific type of practice. Traditional farming is very different than factory farming (which seems to be what you are describing), and there are many levels between them. You may still have problems with how a traditional farm is run, and that's fine, you can present those. But presenting features of factory farming as problems with "livestock farming" implies that all livestock farming is like that, and that's untrue.
If you believe all livestock farming is immoral, please use, or at least add justification for the cases where it's not factory farming if you are going to call out all livestock farming. If you are instead specifically targeting factory farming, please endeavor to accurately label it.
Considering that 99 percent of US meat comes from factory farms[1], there's little point in discussing other forms of farming.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/12/why-free-r...
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/12/why-free-r...
> Considering that 99 percent of US meat comes from factory farms[1], there's little point in discussing other forms of farming.
First, that would only possibly be true if we constrained ourselves to meat production. The original comment I replied to specifically called out dairy, and it's partially what I was thinking of when I replied.
Second, that doesn't make sense because it's useful to discuss alternatives when discussing problems. Even if they aren't a feasible drop in replacement, that doesn't mean there aren't aspects that can possibly be encouraged. Also, it may help narrow the arguments and objections to the core problems people have. For example, is factory farming undesirable because animals are confined, animals are in pain, or because animals deserve a better lifestyle, where they can exist at least somewhat like they would in nature (i.e. do animals deserve not to be tortures in ways that are not just physical)? Focusing only on factory farming may yield reforms that address symptoms, not the problem.
Inaccurately aimed or qualified criticism leads to arguments from people who may agree in principle. It's counterproductive.
First, that would only possibly be true if we constrained ourselves to meat production. The original comment I replied to specifically called out dairy, and it's partially what I was thinking of when I replied.
Second, that doesn't make sense because it's useful to discuss alternatives when discussing problems. Even if they aren't a feasible drop in replacement, that doesn't mean there aren't aspects that can possibly be encouraged. Also, it may help narrow the arguments and objections to the core problems people have. For example, is factory farming undesirable because animals are confined, animals are in pain, or because animals deserve a better lifestyle, where they can exist at least somewhat like they would in nature (i.e. do animals deserve not to be tortures in ways that are not just physical)? Focusing only on factory farming may yield reforms that address symptoms, not the problem.
Inaccurately aimed or qualified criticism leads to arguments from people who may agree in principle. It's counterproductive.
If there are ways of farming that are ethical that are already in use (the 1% in your argument), then we absolutely should discuss those. We would want to start increasing that number.
It changes things considerably whether livestock can be raised ethically. If they can, we can try to do that. If they can't, then the only ethical solution is to stop raising livestock. So discussing that 1% has practical implications.
It changes things considerably whether livestock can be raised ethically. If they can, we can try to do that. If they can't, then the only ethical solution is to stop raising livestock. So discussing that 1% has practical implications.
You can't raise livestock for hundreds of millions of people "ethically" -whatever that means-. That's why people industrialized the process, and on most big factories there's little human intervention.
I can't picture the day where people stop eating meat. It just won't happen, not matter what arguments you present.
The best way to go is replacing it, and the perfect postulate is lab meat, which I hope, is going to be massively produced at low cost in the next ten years. And even if it doesn't ill people, tastes the same as natural meat, you will find resistence.
So, to summarise: lab meat at lower cost than natural meat, demands plunge, billions of animals are saved every year.
I can't picture the day where people stop eating meat. It just won't happen, not matter what arguments you present.
The best way to go is replacing it, and the perfect postulate is lab meat, which I hope, is going to be massively produced at low cost in the next ten years. And even if it doesn't ill people, tastes the same as natural meat, you will find resistence.
So, to summarise: lab meat at lower cost than natural meat, demands plunge, billions of animals are saved every year.
once lab meat/lab milk can be produced at or below cost of farming, cows will likely go extinct, unfortunately.
A less vulgar correlary is that once horse racing is outlawed, horses will mostly go extinct as well, as the racing industry is responsible for being able to acquire feed/hay/veternary care for the average horse owner. Without it will be practically impossible to keep 'pleasure' horses.
We humans are nasty creatures.
A less vulgar correlary is that once horse racing is outlawed, horses will mostly go extinct as well, as the racing industry is responsible for being able to acquire feed/hay/veternary care for the average horse owner. Without it will be practically impossible to keep 'pleasure' horses.
We humans are nasty creatures.
From what I've heard most land-use in the world goes towards animal agriculture - mainly for growing feed. Don't quote me, but I think it's over 40% of all land use in the USA. On balance I'd be far more concerned about the destruction of habitat for already endangered wildlife.
What percentage of usable land is actually used, and what percentage of that usable land percentage is used destructively?
Billions of animals won't be brought into existence, you mean.
Just to be clear, I haven't at all expressed that I think the treatment of livestock for slaughter is acceptable/ethical.
The intelligence remark I made was with regard to why society might perceive these differently. I'm not suggesting that logic is necessarily valid.
The intelligence remark I made was with regard to why society might perceive these differently. I'm not suggesting that logic is necessarily valid.
The desire to protect dogs/cats/horses over other animals isn't cognitive dissonance. Our relationship to certain species goes deeper than intellectual debates. We have evolved dogs from wolves, and so to have we evolved alongside them, to see value beyond meat. We have an instinct that protects dogs and cats because they are more valuable than food. They gather and protect our food. Pigs may be more intelligent, but they don't guard our doors at night and so we lack the same protective instincts. This isn't simple cognitive dissonance, but dissonance between modern intellectual values re intelligence and evolved survival instincts.
I wonder if this is slowly changing as values change. In NZ there is a growing movement to eradicate pests to help protect native species. Cats fall on the wrong side of this goal. There have been public calls by high profile individuals to eradicate cats. Maybe someday birds will be seen to greater value than cats down here.
http://nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10...
http://nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10...
That's a very modern trend. Even if they did 'ban' cats I really doubt anyone would look to eradicate them. We aren't going to see cops raiding people's houses to kill their pets. It will probably take the form of mandatory spay/neuter programs to wipe out the population over a period of several years. The feral cats will be trapped and similarly treated until there are only a very few that need to be actually killed.
I do wonder whether a place like NZ might then have a rat problem. Rats also do real damage to native species, including birds as they eat eggs. Removing a key rat predator inside cities might have repercussions.
I do wonder whether a place like NZ might then have a rat problem. Rats also do real damage to native species, including birds as they eat eggs. Removing a key rat predator inside cities might have repercussions.
We do have a rat problem. There are quite a few predator free areas in NZ which are islands or fenced inland areas. With fenced off areas, more problematic than rats are mice, which can get though truely tiny holes in fences, jump quite high and are hard to control. At least rats can be fenced out more easily. In terms of killing pests, some great equipment has been developed recently. A homegrown CO2 powered ", self resetting trap has impressive functionality and ongoing testing is really promising.
www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313828/self-resetting-rat-traps-20-times-better-than-standard-traps-study
www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313828/self-resetting-rat-traps-20-times-better-than-standard-traps-study
Society has flip-flopped on treating cats as pets or as pests, or even as witch familiars. Call me when people agree to kill dogs, who can wreck native populations a lot worse than cats, if left to breed unchecked on streets.
We're talking about monkeys here - humanity's closest relatives.
If we want AI to treat us well in the far future, we should treat monkeys and apes with dignity and respect today.
If we want AI to treat us well in the far future, we should treat monkeys and apes with dignity and respect today.
Why just them though? We don't treat humans that well a lot of the time, and if AI looked to us for an example, things are going to be rough.
I see it as a continuum not as a black and white situation. The higher an animal is on the Encephalization quotient, the more respect they deserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient
This is why I think it's ok to swat a mosquito that's being annoying, but not to euthanize a monkey that's being annoying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient
This is why I think it's ok to swat a mosquito that's being annoying, but not to euthanize a monkey that's being annoying.
I think average neuron count in the cerebral cortex is good if not better. Some really large animals are outliers, but the EQ score is probably misleading in smaller animals.
(Except for birds and fish, but hey...)
(Except for birds and fish, but hey...)
From the wiki article. Never heard about a eq score before.
Mean EQ for mammals is around 1, with carnivorans, cetaceans and primates above 1, and insectivores and herbivores below. This reflects two major trends. One is that brain matter is extremely costly in terms of energy needed to sustain it.[19] Animals which live on relatively nutrient poor diets (plants, insects) have relatively little energy to spare for a large brain, while animals living from energy-rich food (meat, fish, fruit) can grow larger brains. The other factor is the brain power needed to catch food. Carnivores generally need to find and kill their prey, which presumably requires more cognitive power than browsing or grazing.[20][21] The brain size of a wolf is about 30% larger than a similarily sized domestic dog, again reflecting different needs in their respective way of life.[22]
Mean EQ for mammals is around 1, with carnivorans, cetaceans and primates above 1, and insectivores and herbivores below. This reflects two major trends. One is that brain matter is extremely costly in terms of energy needed to sustain it.[19] Animals which live on relatively nutrient poor diets (plants, insects) have relatively little energy to spare for a large brain, while animals living from energy-rich food (meat, fish, fruit) can grow larger brains. The other factor is the brain power needed to catch food. Carnivores generally need to find and kill their prey, which presumably requires more cognitive power than browsing or grazing.[20][21] The brain size of a wolf is about 30% larger than a similarily sized domestic dog, again reflecting different needs in their respective way of life.[22]
Yes, it is troubling that the two societies most like to create AGI are the USA and China.
Although I'm probably not being critical enough. All of the cultures that have survived to this stage are fairly aggressive and generally destructive.
Although I'm probably not being critical enough. All of the cultures that have survived to this stage are fairly aggressive and generally destructive.
In that case, why not start with human subjects?
Economic reasons? Humans are worth a lot more than monkeys. I know it's a cruel reason and hardly the only one.
Unfortunately not entirely true, depending on where you live.
Americans would be astounded to learn the usual settlements awarded for deaths due to traffic accidents (as an example I'm familiar with) in South America.
Payments of 25.000 dollars aren't uncommon. Colombia and Uruguay pay around U$ 150.000 per death. Heck, even first world countries like Spain can pay less than that.
So, an expensive monkey pet can be more expensive than a human.
http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/10-most-expe...
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Most-Expensive-Pets/
(Spanish) http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/04/08/actualidad/13...
Americans would be astounded to learn the usual settlements awarded for deaths due to traffic accidents (as an example I'm familiar with) in South America.
Payments of 25.000 dollars aren't uncommon. Colombia and Uruguay pay around U$ 150.000 per death. Heck, even first world countries like Spain can pay less than that.
So, an expensive monkey pet can be more expensive than a human.
http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/10-most-expe...
https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Most-Expensive-Pets/
(Spanish) http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/04/08/actualidad/13...
The times that has been done have raised complicated ethical questions beyond the obvious. Many have refused to use the data gathered despite some of the it being potentially helpful as the use of the 'tainted' data gives a validity to the method of gathering.
http://bioethics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/30171/Steinberg.HumanRes...
start is incorrect since human subjects are already being used from time to time. Way less than animals though, and often (e.g. electrical stimulation to fight epilepsy/tinitus) though not always (e.g. recording from electrodes in malicious brain tissue which is going to be removed anyway) they benefit so much it would be almost unhuman not to help them.
Probably because many treatment options can cause harm. So no researcher wants to take the very real risk of harming another human. If you harm an animal unintentionally, and in the name of trying to do something good, not many people will question it. But if you kill a paralyzed patient, or make him suffer excruciating pain, you're likely going to feel remorse and his family is going to demand an answer.
I think the social taboo is self-reinforcing argument. Animals have the same rights as humans. Indeed, we are animals. Those who draw categorical lines to justify their morose experimentation ought to be judged in the same light as someone who would cage a human boy and deliberately sever his spinal cord in the name of a higher good. It's the same. I don't condemn the science, but I do condemn the hypocrisy.
>Animals have the same rights as humans. Indeed, we are animals
By that reasoning, oughtn't we grant the same rights to a sea sponge?
It's not clear to me that animals, as a general class, deserve any particular care or rights beyond what we might extend to living creatures in general. So far as we grants rights to animals, the clear criteria seems to be complexity (especially of the intellectual sort) and closeness to humanity.
By that reasoning, oughtn't we grant the same rights to a sea sponge?
It's not clear to me that animals, as a general class, deserve any particular care or rights beyond what we might extend to living creatures in general. So far as we grants rights to animals, the clear criteria seems to be complexity (especially of the intellectual sort) and closeness to humanity.
My wife is in vet school and when I learned all of what you describe from her I have been phasing out dairy as best as I can. Still can't kick the butter cheese and icecream though :(
You may be interested in watching the documentary 'Earthlings' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358456/
When I search for "gestation crates", Wikipedia tells me this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestation_crate#/media/File:So...
I'm sure you don't explicitly mean this, :)
I'm sure you don't explicitly mean this, :)
This is great comment! I always wondered why people were ok eating cows and pigs and not cats and dogs. It's got to be how we are conditioned from childhood to obey conventional thinking. Dogs are faithful to humans so we cannot eat them....
It's not nonsense. Monkeys are smarter than dogs, pigs, cows, chickens.
Are you saying comparing apples and oranges is the only way to effectively make your point?
Dogs and livestock are quite different. We keep them around for entirely different reasons.
Dogs and livestock are quite different. We keep them around for entirely different reasons.
It doesn't have anything to do with cognitive dissonance. We allow ourselves to slaughter farm animals because we've benefit their species tremendously. The perpetual existence of domestic animal species is virtually assured. By contrast, we have done nothing for monkeys other than relentlessly destroy their habitats.
There is no ethical argument to be made for actions to benefit the species at the expense of the individuals it comprises.
Sure there is.
Someone else already debunked your intelligence argument, but I would like to add something.
Think about how the medical field developed... for biological science you often are going to have to break a few eggs. It sucks... I really understand the motivations you have behind your feelings about hurting animals for human gain, but there isn't any "manual" for biology, hacking away is often the only way to test hypotheses.
Think about how the medical field developed... for biological science you often are going to have to break a few eggs. It sucks... I really understand the motivations you have behind your feelings about hurting animals for human gain, but there isn't any "manual" for biology, hacking away is often the only way to test hypotheses.
Trying things and seeing what happens is the essence of science; the only way we have to try to figure things out. Scientists have to get replication of an effect before they can design further experiments to dig into its details.
As to whether it's unethical--it sickens me too. It's horrifying but what if it gives us the key to solving spinal paralysis? It's a classic moral dilemma. I highly recommend this short story, which explores this sort of dilemma:
http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.p...
As to whether it's unethical--it sickens me too. It's horrifying but what if it gives us the key to solving spinal paralysis? It's a classic moral dilemma. I highly recommend this short story, which explores this sort of dilemma:
http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.p...
Science starts with observation, not experimentation.
Honestly, if this was software, I'd consider this sort of approach as nothing short of pathetic. When I first reverse engineered firmware flashing software for mobile phones, experimentation was the absolute last thing I did - and all that experimentation could do was damage my phone, not another living creature.
Instead I recorded observations of software operating under normal use (USB traces) and identified patterns in this. Only once I'd spent a long time determining patterns and built a model did I decide it was safe to perform some experimentation.
To be fair, biological systems are much more complicated than computer systems written by other humans. However, observation should always come first! This study seems crude to me.
Honestly, if this was software, I'd consider this sort of approach as nothing short of pathetic. When I first reverse engineered firmware flashing software for mobile phones, experimentation was the absolute last thing I did - and all that experimentation could do was damage my phone, not another living creature.
Instead I recorded observations of software operating under normal use (USB traces) and identified patterns in this. Only once I'd spent a long time determining patterns and built a model did I decide it was safe to perform some experimentation.
To be fair, biological systems are much more complicated than computer systems written by other humans. However, observation should always come first! This study seems crude to me.
This is going to seem personally harsh--that's not my intention. But you're flatly wrong. Fundamentally, collecting observations is an active pursuit.
An example: We didn't start to learn about electricity until we started messing with it. That's because there was very little to observe passively. Touching electric fish, rubbing amber to make static electricity, flying a kite into a thunderstorm--these sorts of actions produced the early observations that started us down the path toward the knowledge we have today.
Your example was observing USB traces. In order to do that, you had to plug a well-understood sensor into a well-understood interface. You did something, and observed the results. You just think of it as passive observation because you're taking for granted the enormous amount of prior knowledge that made it possible.
An example: We didn't start to learn about electricity until we started messing with it. That's because there was very little to observe passively. Touching electric fish, rubbing amber to make static electricity, flying a kite into a thunderstorm--these sorts of actions produced the early observations that started us down the path toward the knowledge we have today.
Your example was observing USB traces. In order to do that, you had to plug a well-understood sensor into a well-understood interface. You did something, and observed the results. You just think of it as passive observation because you're taking for granted the enormous amount of prior knowledge that made it possible.
I do agree with you here. My point is paralysing the monkey didn't help them collect data about how a monkey walks, quite the opposite.
Reasonable observations would consist of using electrodes to monitor left leg movements vs right leg movements. Running vs walking, joint extension etc.
Build a waveform generator and compare the generated waveforms vs real waveforms and iterate.
(The scientists did actually do this.)
Once you've got a fair degree of confidence then you can try apply your work.
Paralysing a monkey just to replay captured data when we already know we can interface with the nervous system is totally unnecessary.
Edit: It should really go without saying that when it does come time to apply your work you do everything within your power to avoid harming a non-consenting creature. Does applying the work even require paralysing a monkey? Can it be temporary? What about sedation and then interfacing with the nervous system whilst sedated?
Reasonable observations would consist of using electrodes to monitor left leg movements vs right leg movements. Running vs walking, joint extension etc.
Build a waveform generator and compare the generated waveforms vs real waveforms and iterate.
(The scientists did actually do this.)
Once you've got a fair degree of confidence then you can try apply your work.
Paralysing a monkey just to replay captured data when we already know we can interface with the nervous system is totally unnecessary.
Edit: It should really go without saying that when it does come time to apply your work you do everything within your power to avoid harming a non-consenting creature. Does applying the work even require paralysing a monkey? Can it be temporary? What about sedation and then interfacing with the nervous system whilst sedated?
> We next exploited cortical signals to decode the temporal structure of extensor and flexor hotspot activation. The spiking activity recorded from the left motor cortex displayed cyclic modulations that were phase-locked with right leg movements (Extended Data Fig. 4a). We developed a decoder that calculated the probability of foot-strike and foot-off events from this modulation to anticipate the activation of extensor and flexor hotspots associated with right leg movements (Extended Data Fig. 4b). Evaluations in two intact monkeys showed that the decoder accurately predicted these gait events in real time over extended periods of locomotion, including when initiating and terminating gait, and during rest.
(Source: doi:10.1038/nature20118)
Is that kind of what you mean?
(Source: doi:10.1038/nature20118)
Is that kind of what you mean?
You can't compare the two because one was created by humans and one was not. It's ridiculous to compare these two. Here's a more accurate scenario:
You need to debug this software without a keyboard, mouse, monitor. The language is an assembly language written by aliens with no documentation that uses quantum states in protons to manage the machine. Oh by the way, it's encrypted and obfuscated into nothing but MOV instructions. And there's 100 billion MOV instructions.
That's the kind of complexity we are talking about here. So get off your highhorse and let the experts who just made a paralyzed monkey walk do their jobs.
You need to debug this software without a keyboard, mouse, monitor. The language is an assembly language written by aliens with no documentation that uses quantum states in protons to manage the machine. Oh by the way, it's encrypted and obfuscated into nothing but MOV instructions. And there's 100 billion MOV instructions.
That's the kind of complexity we are talking about here. So get off your highhorse and let the experts who just made a paralyzed monkey walk do their jobs.
Actually, the electronics analogy is apt for more difficult cases than the OP's. If communications are encrypted or signed you may be out of luck unless you can extract the software from one of the devices; sometimes that's almost impossible, sometimes it can be done but only by disassembling the device (frequently an irreversible process) and reading the data off an EEPROM chip or something. If the protocol directly involves hardware (e.g. hardware crypto), then the state of the art permits nothing better than experimentation, combined with some crude 'in vivo' attacks like differential power analysis. In theory, after decapping and delayering the chip (also irreversible), a scanning election microscope can show the transistor layout clearly enough to reconstruct its functionality, but no software exists to do this automatically, and with billions of transistors good luck doing it manually.
Except they didn't exactly make a paralyzed monkey walk, did they? They simply paralyzed a monkey.
There are parts of this study that seem quite legit (another poster referred to them above).
However, the paralysis, surgery, and replay of data into the nervous system, just to be the first to "claim" they made a monkey walk was not one of them.
I already mentioned software is very different to biology, my issue is with reckless experimentation that has caused a lot of harm to a creature and provides no real gain. What were they actually hoping to achieve with this part of the experiment? It's already well understood that we can interface with nervous system, this is nothing new.
P.S. concern for the well being of other creatures isn't a particularly high horse. It's called empathy.
There are parts of this study that seem quite legit (another poster referred to them above).
However, the paralysis, surgery, and replay of data into the nervous system, just to be the first to "claim" they made a monkey walk was not one of them.
I already mentioned software is very different to biology, my issue is with reckless experimentation that has caused a lot of harm to a creature and provides no real gain. What were they actually hoping to achieve with this part of the experiment? It's already well understood that we can interface with nervous system, this is nothing new.
P.S. concern for the well being of other creatures isn't a particularly high horse. It's called empathy.
It's not "reckless experimentation" for "no gain" at all.
Here's a practical application for this research. Someone with a disease will eventually suffer from paralysis due to the degen. nature of the disease. Applying the technique from the research, we could record their body movements before they become paralyzed and then restore their ability to walk later.
I think that's a pretty real gain. Just because it's in a fledgling stage of research doesn't mean it's worthless. Medical research is a much longer timeline than even complex software. You make incredibly small baby steps precisely because you don't have tools like a debugger, logic analyzer, etc, etc.
Here's a practical application for this research. Someone with a disease will eventually suffer from paralysis due to the degen. nature of the disease. Applying the technique from the research, we could record their body movements before they become paralyzed and then restore their ability to walk later.
I think that's a pretty real gain. Just because it's in a fledgling stage of research doesn't mean it's worthless. Medical research is a much longer timeline than even complex software. You make incredibly small baby steps precisely because you don't have tools like a debugger, logic analyzer, etc, etc.
> It's already well understood that we can interface with nervous system, this is nothing new.
Ok, let's not do anything then because actually putting this understanding to use involves touching actual brain matter and seeing what works.
Ok, let's not do anything then because actually putting this understanding to use involves touching actual brain matter and seeing what works.
The phrasing is a bit harsh, but the example is a nice one. It's easy to forget how complex living creatures are.
Do you think scientists are not recording normal use case ?
Of course they use technology to observe and record normal and pathological "use". Do you think brain implants are made without using scanner, IRM...?
Of course they use technology to observe and record normal and pathological "use". Do you think brain implants are made without using scanner, IRM...?
How do you suggest one should observe neural activity?
EEG and MRI seem an obvious starting place, but use humans not monkeys, and this will give better data.
Computational Neuroscience student here.
Research of this nature requires reading the electrical spike trains of small sets of neurons (often even individual cells).
EEG will give you a measurement of the combined electric field of every single neuron that is active in the entire brain. You can use multiple electrodes and run machine learning algorithms to get a qualitative measure of a macroscopic chunk of brain activity. So, terrible spatial precision.
MRI gives you anatomical information.
fMRI gives an idea of blood flow in the brain (about millimeter precision which is also not good enough) which is a time-lagged (a few seconds) _response_ to sustained neural spiking in a region.
Think of it like this: The brain is a computational organ where there is very little hardware-software separation. We're not going to be able to patch the software (say, to treat paralysis) without patching the hardware (say, with implants)
Research of this nature requires reading the electrical spike trains of small sets of neurons (often even individual cells).
EEG will give you a measurement of the combined electric field of every single neuron that is active in the entire brain. You can use multiple electrodes and run machine learning algorithms to get a qualitative measure of a macroscopic chunk of brain activity. So, terrible spatial precision.
MRI gives you anatomical information.
fMRI gives an idea of blood flow in the brain (about millimeter precision which is also not good enough) which is a time-lagged (a few seconds) _response_ to sustained neural spiking in a region.
Think of it like this: The brain is a computational organ where there is very little hardware-software separation. We're not going to be able to patch the software (say, to treat paralysis) without patching the hardware (say, with implants)
The point of my comment was that getting good testing is surely easier on humans than monkeys. Actually going in has to happen at some point - why not do this on humans that have volunteered? Cellular level investigations are obviously important but getting a wire in somewhere is not going to happen at a level this small. It will be image guided surely. X-ray would by my guess and hopefully MR but that obviously has its complexities as MR with additional wires isn't that straight forward. A decent MR DTI can help when you want to know where the fibres go, but as you say, the hardware/software division isn't quite so clear with live things.
The point of my comment was that getting good testing is surely easier on humans than monkeys. Actually going in has to happen at some point - why not do this on humans that have volunteered?
1. Humans do volunteer and it does happen, but even with full consent, regulations will always be stricter on human experimentation than on animals.
2. We don't understand the brain very well and it is easy to make mistakes when working with neural tissue. The consequences of causing irreversible damage/death are much higher when the brain belongs to a human being. On the other hand, most people eat animals for pleasure.
Cellular level investigations are obviously important but getting a wire in somewhere is not going to happen at a level this small
It does happen, there exist small electrode array implants that can be placed in neural tissue to both induce (for example, cause sensations that one can feel) and read-out activity. Such implants are in fact used in some human subjects (there are issues such as development of scar-tissue however).
A decent MR DTI can help when you want to know where the fibres go, but as you say, the hardware/software division isn't quite so clear with live things.
Yeah, for neural interfacing a connectome is not enough, you need to work at the neural code level. Reading out each spike with full spatial resolution from a distance will probably never happen.
Believe me, neuroscientists do not enjoy the fact that invasive experimentation has to be performed on blameless animals; unfortunately it has to be done, unless people are willing to live with the level of understanding/treatments we have now and never move forward.
1. Humans do volunteer and it does happen, but even with full consent, regulations will always be stricter on human experimentation than on animals.
2. We don't understand the brain very well and it is easy to make mistakes when working with neural tissue. The consequences of causing irreversible damage/death are much higher when the brain belongs to a human being. On the other hand, most people eat animals for pleasure.
Cellular level investigations are obviously important but getting a wire in somewhere is not going to happen at a level this small
It does happen, there exist small electrode array implants that can be placed in neural tissue to both induce (for example, cause sensations that one can feel) and read-out activity. Such implants are in fact used in some human subjects (there are issues such as development of scar-tissue however).
A decent MR DTI can help when you want to know where the fibres go, but as you say, the hardware/software division isn't quite so clear with live things.
Yeah, for neural interfacing a connectome is not enough, you need to work at the neural code level. Reading out each spike with full spatial resolution from a distance will probably never happen.
Believe me, neuroscientists do not enjoy the fact that invasive experimentation has to be performed on blameless animals; unfortunately it has to be done, unless people are willing to live with the level of understanding/treatments we have now and never move forward.
I think you may misunderstand me as I wasn't clear
"Cellular level investigations are obviously important but getting a wire in somewhere is not going to happen at a level this small It does happen, there exist small electrode array implants that can be placed in neural tissue to both induce (for example, cause sensations that one can feel) and read-out activity. Such implants are in fact used in some human subjects (there are issues such as development of scar-tissue however)."
What I mean - in a human subject the placement of any implant is not going to be guided by anything approaching a cellular level of imaging resolution. It will mostly use conventional radiological image guidance to get close and then measure electrical signals once close. Or is this in fact what you are saying?
Sorry about my formatting - phone.
"Cellular level investigations are obviously important but getting a wire in somewhere is not going to happen at a level this small It does happen, there exist small electrode array implants that can be placed in neural tissue to both induce (for example, cause sensations that one can feel) and read-out activity. Such implants are in fact used in some human subjects (there are issues such as development of scar-tissue however)."
What I mean - in a human subject the placement of any implant is not going to be guided by anything approaching a cellular level of imaging resolution. It will mostly use conventional radiological image guidance to get close and then measure electrical signals once close. Or is this in fact what you are saying?
Sorry about my formatting - phone.
We need single neuron level mapping for any hope of a decent Brain-Computer Interface. Or even for really understanding how the brain works, in order to simulate it or progress in biologically inspired AI.
Neural lace looks promising. But wouldn't be the first to volunteer for one :)
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v13/n10/full/nmeth.3969....
Sidenote: I feel slightly uneasy about all this stuff.
On one level it is progressing our knowledge, but both the methods of the research (animal testing) and potential implications of deep human+machine symbiosis, combined with CRISPR on animals and humans, feel instinctively bad. It won't stop at curing disease.
Neural lace looks promising. But wouldn't be the first to volunteer for one :)
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v13/n10/full/nmeth.3969....
Sidenote: I feel slightly uneasy about all this stuff.
On one level it is progressing our knowledge, but both the methods of the research (animal testing) and potential implications of deep human+machine symbiosis, combined with CRISPR on animals and humans, feel instinctively bad. It won't stop at curing disease.
> Science starts with observation, not experimentation.
well, yes, but in a lot of neuroscience research, mainly the fundametal research, the initial observation stage led to the knowlegde that you first need controlled experimentation in order to perform any further valid/interesting observation at all
well, yes, but in a lot of neuroscience research, mainly the fundametal research, the initial observation stage led to the knowlegde that you first need controlled experimentation in order to perform any further valid/interesting observation at all
Scientists are not sadists, and welfare is taken extremely seriously. What people don't see are the efforts to enrich living environments, provide sedation and analgesia, or the reams of protocols on monitoring and rapidly terminating experiments if the animal is distressed. None of this exists in livestock farming.
Also, for me intelligence is besides the point. If someone is suffering, I don't factor their IQ into whether or not I should help them. What I am saying is that if we are happy to accept animals suffering for our benefit, then we should not be selective about it.
Also, for me intelligence is besides the point. If someone is suffering, I don't factor their IQ into whether or not I should help them. What I am saying is that if we are happy to accept animals suffering for our benefit, then we should not be selective about it.
You are making a generalisation here. There is plenty of poor treatment of animals in science. I'm sure things are better than they were but claiming that everything is good and everyone is too doesn't square with human behaviour at all.
The point is that intelligence is sentience. The more aware you are of your own condition the more capable you are of suffering. A jellyfish does not suffer the same as a human, at least not in the way we'd typically measure suffering.
I partially agree with you, but sentience isn't the same as intelligence. From having had dogs I get the impression that most of them are every bit as sentient as I am.
There's also a large amount of speciesism involved in how we feel that's not concerned with intelligence or sentience. As an example, I can conceive of a scenario where someone with a severe learning disability might be less aware and less capable of abstract problem solving than some corvids are. That wouldn't affect my decision of which one to assist in a disaster.
There's also a large amount of speciesism involved in how we feel that's not concerned with intelligence or sentience. As an example, I can conceive of a scenario where someone with a severe learning disability might be less aware and less capable of abstract problem solving than some corvids are. That wouldn't affect my decision of which one to assist in a disaster.
and sentience is the new soul
Philosophical and metaphysical question, what do we do about all of the suffering that has occurred in the past?
There is no accumulator for suffering, each state exists independent of the next.
If it already happened once, how is it any different if it happens again?
There is no accumulator for suffering, each state exists independent of the next.
If it already happened once, how is it any different if it happens again?
Ever heard of karma? Or the popular scientific butterfly effect?
Pigs are actually really intelligent as in higher than dogs. So, it really depends on the type of money.
> Also, intentionally paralysing a creature, leaving it to live in that condition, and then performing experimental surgery/procedures on it is significantly different than slaughtering it.
It seems very similar to intentionally placing an animal in a cage it can't move around in and leaving it to live in that condition. The conditions are, as I understand it, more cruel and unusual than "experimental surgery/procedures."
It seems very similar to intentionally placing an animal in a cage it can't move around in and leaving it to live in that condition. The conditions are, as I understand it, more cruel and unusual than "experimental surgery/procedures."
Because it's creepy and weird so we will consider a quick slaughter more ethical than experimentation because bacon and steak is so delicious.
That's my guess.
That's my guess.
"working with monkeys in China is less burdened by regulation than it is in Europe and the United States"
It reminds of the skeptics about China achieving fusion for one minute, as well as China's new rocket capable of landing taikonauts on the moon.
It seems to me China is doubling down on scientific research. Their methods or ethics might be frowned on the West, but it is clear from recent news that pace of scientific discovery is accelerating in China.
It reminds of the skeptics about China achieving fusion for one minute, as well as China's new rocket capable of landing taikonauts on the moon.
It seems to me China is doubling down on scientific research. Their methods or ethics might be frowned on the West, but it is clear from recent news that pace of scientific discovery is accelerating in China.
This doesn't bode well for political prisoners.
There has been plenty of talk and evidence of forced organ harvesting in China, and experimentation could occur in this environment.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-carrying-out-millions-of-illegal-organ-transplants-annually-report-finds-a7107091.html
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-carrying-out-millions-of-illegal-organ-transplants-annually-report-finds-a7107091.html
>working with monkeys in China is less burdened by regulation than it is in Europe and the United States
I'd argue in cases like these the European regulations are actually a good thing, mainly considering the animals' welfare: in China rules like minimum cage size are either a fraction of European standards or non-existing/not checked. Of course there's always the argument 'I keep my monkeys healthy otherwise they won't work well for the experiments' but if experiments must be done, wouldn't we rather have the animals housed in a spacious area with daylight vs in a cage of 2m^3 in a dark basement?
I'd argue in cases like these the European regulations are actually a good thing, mainly considering the animals' welfare: in China rules like minimum cage size are either a fraction of European standards or non-existing/not checked. Of course there's always the argument 'I keep my monkeys healthy otherwise they won't work well for the experiments' but if experiments must be done, wouldn't we rather have the animals housed in a spacious area with daylight vs in a cage of 2m^3 in a dark basement?
I agree. Logically, it should be more acceptable to have animals as test subjects that can benefit all mankind vs being a tasty treat for an individual. But we all have are cognitive dissonances, without exception. Thats just a quirk of being human
> we all have are cognitive dissonances
To be honest I haven't found a bigger cognitive dissonance than the love animals / eat animals one.
To be honest I haven't found a bigger cognitive dissonance than the love animals / eat animals one.
I think the dissonance is more pronounced in love animals / eat mistreated animals. Empathy developed presumably along with the enjoyment for taste of animal fats and protein
That dissonance can be resolved relatively easily by throwing money at the problem and eating non-mistreated animals. Love/eat is a harder moral problem IMO because there is no acceptable workaround, at least today. Someday there will be one: we'll be able to buy synthetic meat that's truly equivalent to animal meat (maybe grown with animal stem cells), and eventually the harvesting of real animals will end. But that won't mark any kind of moral evolution, only a newfound ability to not have to make a choice.
Most people "solve" it with love cute animals, eat animals I don't care about.
The real cognitive dissonance is testing on them or slaughtering them for food vs. pampering them and trying to save endangered species, etc. The testing is often worse since it may involve torture and/or mutilation.
A lot of people feel a moral distinction between a quick death to more primitive traditional needs of food v/s slower death for uncertain gains. It is some kind of cognitive dissonance I feel. A lot of Americans who are perfectly happy eating a cow make fun of Indians for referring to cow as holy and outrage at Chinese killing dogs for food.
I personally think eastern world and more paganic religions like that of native Indians are perhaps more right to not see these issues as black and white based on fixed line but instead see our relationship with nature as much more flexible co-dependence. Like a mother who uses her own metabolism to feed her little child and the child who eventually tries to get rid of that dependence.
I personally think eastern world and more paganic religions like that of native Indians are perhaps more right to not see these issues as black and white based on fixed line but instead see our relationship with nature as much more flexible co-dependence. Like a mother who uses her own metabolism to feed her little child and the child who eventually tries to get rid of that dependence.
Many people would consider torture worse than murder, basically.
I recommend this recent podcast episode about the controversial topic of animal testing http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/animal-testing.ht...
We are much closer geneticaly to monkeys than to cows, I would'nt do experiments on something that has 99% genes in common with me.
Chimpanzees are at ~98%, mice are at about 97% similarity [1]. Where do you draw the line? Genetic similarity is imho a poor measure. The capability of suffering is more difficult to assess, but more useful. I'm reasonably sure that the animals we eat can suffer sufficiently to make the way we raise and kill them problematic.
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2352-just-2-5-of-dna-...
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2352-just-2-5-of-dna-...
Genetic similarity is bs measurement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbY122CSC5w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbY122CSC5w
Do you have a source for that 98% number? I've been hearing it thrown around since before the human genome project was finished and long before anyone really started a chimp genome map, but I've never seen a source.
Genetic similarity is definitely a poor measure, but keep in mind many (including myself) consider testing on mice highly unethical as well.
The problem then boils down to what's an acceptable percentage, no?
I mean, 99% is off limits, but what about 98%? 95%? where's the cut off?
I don't think gene commonality is a useful metric for this. Not really sure what would it be though, and I agree that it seems creepy to do experiments on an animal that looks a lot more like you than a worm or a rat.
But I also think it's appalling the way we treat our food sources and would love for this to improve, regardless of whether they look like me or not, and regardless of the amount of genes we have in common. Just out of basic respect for life (I also don't like cutting trees and plants just because).
Unfortunately I still like meat and bacon and other cow products, and while I try to eat less red meat, it's very hard to do.
I mean, 99% is off limits, but what about 98%? 95%? where's the cut off?
I don't think gene commonality is a useful metric for this. Not really sure what would it be though, and I agree that it seems creepy to do experiments on an animal that looks a lot more like you than a worm or a rat.
But I also think it's appalling the way we treat our food sources and would love for this to improve, regardless of whether they look like me or not, and regardless of the amount of genes we have in common. Just out of basic respect for life (I also don't like cutting trees and plants just because).
Unfortunately I still like meat and bacon and other cow products, and while I try to eat less red meat, it's very hard to do.
The figure I've seen cited for rhesus monkeys 93%, with cows around 80%. But why are you so concerned about genetic similarity? Isn't the more important question how sentient and capable of suffering they are? If we discovered alien beings with human-like intelligence and sentience that didn't share our DNA, would you prefer experimenting on those?
Another, perhaps more pressing ethical issue, would be sentient software or emulations. They also wouldn't share DNA.
As long as the people saying that, would voluntarily renounce to benefit of the results of this experiment, or any experiment involving other 100% genetically identic humans, all is ok.
Cars kill much more animals each day in any case, for no reason and including lots of humans. Maybe people fairly concerned about animal pain could use their skills and time to solve this much more serious problem. Wouldn't be a great goal? You'll save much more lives in an hour than in an entire life of lab rat rescue.
Cars kill much more animals each day in any case, for no reason and including lots of humans. Maybe people fairly concerned about animal pain could use their skills and time to solve this much more serious problem. Wouldn't be a great goal? You'll save much more lives in an hour than in an entire life of lab rat rescue.
Regulatory ethics questions aside, why wouldn't he just live in China?
Probably for the same reason that I don't sleep under my desk at my workplace.
When I'm not working, I would rather be home. For some people, home is a place, and for others, home is people. Either way, if you can't move home to China, but you can move your workplace there, you will have to commute there at intervals.
When I'm not working, I would rather be home. For some people, home is a place, and for others, home is people. Either way, if you can't move home to China, but you can move your workplace there, you will have to commute there at intervals.
"The problem I see with this is that they implant monkey before paralysis and can use machine learning to build a model of the monkey's unique representation for walking. Then they paralyze and show the monkey's can adapt to only using their interface in 5 days. There's no way the mapping from neural activity to stimulation is generalizable..." [1]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/5c2ljz/brain_impla...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/5c2ljz/brain_impla...
Indeed, the research is a bit unfair. Its not difficult to understand old signals and they reuse it to generate motor effects.
The other thing has been done as well though: Obama shook a robotic arm's hand, the arm was being controlled by a paralyzed man; he learned the proper 'thoughts' for generating movement himself and the researchers didn't have recordings of the man moving prior to his accident leading to paralysis
I have a spinal condition called Syringomyelia, at the moment apart from neuropathic pain it doesn't effect my ability to walk but down the line it could (with complete paralysis been a possible outcome).
They could record the way my brain sends walk signals and if I end up paralysed they have the data to train the model.
There are multiple spinal conditions that result in paralysis after not be been paralysed, not everyone who ends up in a wheelchair gets their by an accident.
They could record the way my brain sends walk signals and if I end up paralysed they have the data to train the model.
There are multiple spinal conditions that result in paralysis after not be been paralysed, not everyone who ends up in a wheelchair gets their by an accident.
I hadn't thought of that kind of application before. Thanks.
Yes
But maybe it is. You can also put people on a VR environment and have them "walk" there (see experiments by Nicolelis et. al.) and try to capture signals like that
But maybe it is. You can also put people on a VR environment and have them "walk" there (see experiments by Nicolelis et. al.) and try to capture signals like that
One of my fear is an extremely big generation gap in the future when we find a transhuman-level technology that can only work if done from an early age. Exocortex interface comes to mind.
Then you would have an entire generation thinking millions of times deeper, broader, and faster than the previous one, and communication mostly broken. I sort of fear this scenario because I would be on the wrong side of it.
Then you would have an entire generation thinking millions of times deeper, broader, and faster than the previous one, and communication mostly broken. I sort of fear this scenario because I would be on the wrong side of it.
I'm in neuro, that scenario is centuries away. You'd peobably need a clear skull first with exotic glasses we can't even begin to understand physics-wise today. We don't even know what your brain cells mostly are. Is it 10% neurons and 90% glia, or 50% neurons and 50% glia? What are glia even doing? The only data we really get on them is via stroke studies. Neuro is exciting precisely because there is so little known about the brain still.
But we don't really need to understand something to create technology leveraging it. And we are just getting started with deep learning. And our computers are extremely slow and have tiny storage compared to what they will be.
Ok, I have this pill/wire-probe/exercise-machine, I don't really know what it does, but in some folks it seems to make them happier/healthier, that is all the info you are going to get about said thingy.
Do you use it?
Bio is like that. We really don't know what is going on with a body most of the time. When we try to leverage it, it gives totally nutto results. Like, yeah, water is good for you! Like, maybe we should make it inhale-able! Or yeah, caffeine is alright, makes you wake-up! You should just take NoDoz and never sleep again!
Those are absurd examples, but I hope they illustrate that in bio, 'leveraging' something typically means you are gonna die either real soon or you are gonna get cancer. Fen-phen is a great example of 'leveraging' something in bio [0]. Yeah, you loose weight, but then you blow your heart valves out and end up as worm food.
So when you say that we can just throw computers at the problem, you make a huge mistake with that idea. Your input data is everything. You have to run a LOT of experiments in the real world to get the right data, not just noise you think is data. Living things are really good at staying alive until they aren't. They are not just noisy, they are also altering the experiment along with the experimenter. Homeostasis is a real thing and bodies and living things try to stay happy, healthy, and alive. Like, here is the thing, your experimental test-bed is alive and thinking and is, in some cases, trying to experiment-on/kill-you right back. Try feeding that into a computer! You have 300k+ dependent variables (that you know of) and 10 equations (if you trust those other authors). You are trying to find the mean of N interacting Poisson/Gaussian data sets (you hope they are normal) in N dimensional space and you know that you don't know all the variables and you can only do this on 5 rats.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenfluramine/phentermine
Do you use it?
Bio is like that. We really don't know what is going on with a body most of the time. When we try to leverage it, it gives totally nutto results. Like, yeah, water is good for you! Like, maybe we should make it inhale-able! Or yeah, caffeine is alright, makes you wake-up! You should just take NoDoz and never sleep again!
Those are absurd examples, but I hope they illustrate that in bio, 'leveraging' something typically means you are gonna die either real soon or you are gonna get cancer. Fen-phen is a great example of 'leveraging' something in bio [0]. Yeah, you loose weight, but then you blow your heart valves out and end up as worm food.
So when you say that we can just throw computers at the problem, you make a huge mistake with that idea. Your input data is everything. You have to run a LOT of experiments in the real world to get the right data, not just noise you think is data. Living things are really good at staying alive until they aren't. They are not just noisy, they are also altering the experiment along with the experimenter. Homeostasis is a real thing and bodies and living things try to stay happy, healthy, and alive. Like, here is the thing, your experimental test-bed is alive and thinking and is, in some cases, trying to experiment-on/kill-you right back. Try feeding that into a computer! You have 300k+ dependent variables (that you know of) and 10 equations (if you trust those other authors). You are trying to find the mean of N interacting Poisson/Gaussian data sets (you hope they are normal) in N dimensional space and you know that you don't know all the variables and you can only do this on 5 rats.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenfluramine/phentermine
That's why you should backup early and often your neuronal imprint. Cyberpunk is one step closer.
This might still be useful medically.
Let's guess that each person's unique representation for walking does not change, or changes slowly. That seems reasonable since it is at least partially based on the physical arrangement of neurons.
We could bank it on a regular basis--recording via a device we wear around for a month every 5 years, for example. Then if we are paralyzed, the most recent recording is used to map an implant.
Personally, I will not surprised if we find that each person's nervous system is so different from the next that nothing significant is generalizable. Rather than each person running an "OS on standard hardware" we might find that a more accurate analogy is that each person has constructed their own custom logic circuit and then wrote custom software on top of that.
Let's guess that each person's unique representation for walking does not change, or changes slowly. That seems reasonable since it is at least partially based on the physical arrangement of neurons.
We could bank it on a regular basis--recording via a device we wear around for a month every 5 years, for example. Then if we are paralyzed, the most recent recording is used to map an implant.
Personally, I will not surprised if we find that each person's nervous system is so different from the next that nothing significant is generalizable. Rather than each person running an "OS on standard hardware" we might find that a more accurate analogy is that each person has constructed their own custom logic circuit and then wrote custom software on top of that.
As a person who knows next to nothing about the inner workings of the brain, the few books I read hinted of this. Apparently, learning changes the brain's physiology? anybody knows about good books on understanding how the brain works - as far as we know today?
There 's plasticity involved, and the problem that brain circuits continuously remap. They can be retrained though. I think they had similar problems with the BrainGate BMI many years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrainGate).
We need to talk about animal experimentation regulation and protests here in europe. It has gone so far that scientists have literally given up their science: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/embattled-max-planck-...
We have seen many such interfaces in recent years, but as I understand these techniques they all suffer the same problem. The body eventually coats the electrodes in a non-conductive layer, essentially scar tissue, and the whole thing grinds to a halt in a matter of weeks. Until that practical limitation is surmounted, it seems very wrong to treat animals in such a manner. Watching the paralyzed monkey (also the rat) struggle in obvious agony as the commentators cheered was not fun. This was not the sort of thing I had expected to see on a program clearly aimed at a general audience. This was the very dark side of animal testing.
I saw this story on a canadian news show a couple days ago, a show that regularly does spots on human exploration of Mars. The stories are similar. The headline feel-good story is about the shiny new mars habitat or spacesuit someone is testing, but they haven;t figured out how to actually get it to mars. The result is the false impression that the dreamed future, colonizing Mars and curing paralysis, is closer than is true.
I saw this story on a canadian news show a couple days ago, a show that regularly does spots on human exploration of Mars. The stories are similar. The headline feel-good story is about the shiny new mars habitat or spacesuit someone is testing, but they haven;t figured out how to actually get it to mars. The result is the false impression that the dreamed future, colonizing Mars and curing paralysis, is closer than is true.
Gliosis is a big problem for sure, and the central nervous system's scarring is not well understood at this time.
Typically with recording electrodes you can either 'jiggle' them to shake off the scarring cells or pass a small amount of current between the combined electrodes to kill off the cells. These recording electrodes are typically only a few microns apart, so long range damage is a non-issue if the subject is not connected to ground in another way. You can go for ~6 months like this before the gliosis really builds up, and honestly, by that time the recording electrode has probably broken anyway or the subject has bonked the implant and it broke that way too, or as is typically the case with monkey subjects, it tore out the implant and ate it, stabbed another monkey with it, or tried to have sex with it. Monkey studies are rare and hard, not just because of ethical issues, but because monkeys are clever little assholes.
Typically with recording electrodes you can either 'jiggle' them to shake off the scarring cells or pass a small amount of current between the combined electrodes to kill off the cells. These recording electrodes are typically only a few microns apart, so long range damage is a non-issue if the subject is not connected to ground in another way. You can go for ~6 months like this before the gliosis really builds up, and honestly, by that time the recording electrode has probably broken anyway or the subject has bonked the implant and it broke that way too, or as is typically the case with monkey subjects, it tore out the implant and ate it, stabbed another monkey with it, or tried to have sex with it. Monkey studies are rare and hard, not just because of ethical issues, but because monkeys are clever little assholes.
The process of refreshing an electrode sounds tortuous for the subject. And your information re monkeys clawing out devices Jurassic Park-style is equally disturbing. This points to the conclusion that the efforts spent internalizing the system has less to do with benefit and more to do with preventing the animal from ending the agony.
But speaking of the electrodes, how long do they last in human subjects? Docs have been implanting various electrodes in human nerves/brains for decades and I assume a paralyzed person in a research study isn't going to rip them out. With enough current can the gliosis be overcome perpetually?
(lol, spellcheck went with 'parallelized' and 'gigolos'. That might say something about my normal writing subjects.)
But speaking of the electrodes, how long do they last in human subjects? Docs have been implanting various electrodes in human nerves/brains for decades and I assume a paralyzed person in a research study isn't going to rip them out. With enough current can the gliosis be overcome perpetually?
(lol, spellcheck went with 'parallelized' and 'gigolos'. That might say something about my normal writing subjects.)
Well, there are no pain neurons inside of the central nervous system, so they literally cannot feel anything when you record or 'clean' the tips of the electrodes. Besides, since electricity takes the least impediant path, the current can only flow locally, i.e. over the non-sensing scarring cells. There is not harm to the subject, only to the scar tissue.
Human electrodes can last a lifetime if they are properly done. Look at a pace-maker. They last decades. Granted they are not for individual neuron recordings, but they work great. The first deep brain stimulation patients are about 5 years old now and they seem to be doing fine as a whole, the Parkinson's disease symptoms are significantly lessened and their quality of life is very improved. It'll take more time and effort, but yeah, I think we can overcome the gliosis, though it is probably gong to be a drug interaction with the mechanical/electrical that will do it, not just electrical alone.
Human electrodes can last a lifetime if they are properly done. Look at a pace-maker. They last decades. Granted they are not for individual neuron recordings, but they work great. The first deep brain stimulation patients are about 5 years old now and they seem to be doing fine as a whole, the Parkinson's disease symptoms are significantly lessened and their quality of life is very improved. It'll take more time and effort, but yeah, I think we can overcome the gliosis, though it is probably gong to be a drug interaction with the mechanical/electrical that will do it, not just electrical alone.
See the paper in my other reply to the parent. Admittedly, it only solves the technical problems (and only in mice so far), but it's a big step forward.
A huge amount of progress has been made in this area. The most promising report I've seen was in Nat Methods a few weeks ago:
"we demonstrated stable multiplexed local field potentials and single-unit recordings in mouse brains for at least 8 months without probe repositioning"
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v13/n10/full/nmeth.3969....
"we demonstrated stable multiplexed local field potentials and single-unit recordings in mouse brains for at least 8 months without probe repositioning"
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v13/n10/full/nmeth.3969....
I struggled with this while in graduate school studying neuroscience. Fortunately, I was studying crustaceans so there were not too many ethical issues. But there was rodent and monkey research happening in the school. I choose to return to my first profession - software. I assume that I'll be long dead before there are ethical issues with experimenting on AI.
Animal research is something that we as a society are going to struggle with for many years into the future. I would like to be able to argue that it is for the greater good of the planet, but I don't think that I could put up a good argument that we are being proper stewards of the planet.
Animal research is something that we as a society are going to struggle with for many years into the future. I would like to be able to argue that it is for the greater good of the planet, but I don't think that I could put up a good argument that we are being proper stewards of the planet.
This is absolutely fantastic and its a great step in the right direction but we are still years if not decades away from being able to circumvent spinal lesions in humans.
One of the major problems with human spinal lesions is the loss of control of the trunk of the body (ie the core). Humans have dozens of muscle groups that control balance and posture through minute movements. Without fine grain control over these muscles balance is going to be extremely difficult.
One of the major problems with human spinal lesions is the loss of control of the trunk of the body (ie the core). Humans have dozens of muscle groups that control balance and posture through minute movements. Without fine grain control over these muscles balance is going to be extremely difficult.
>we are still years if not decades away from being able to circumvent spinal lesions in humans.
On the other hand it's quite possible that if you implanted the same equipment into humans right now that it could work with a bit of tweaking. It's kind of hard to say till someone tries it.
On the other hand it's quite possible that if you implanted the same equipment into humans right now that it could work with a bit of tweaking. It's kind of hard to say till someone tries it.
I'm eager for the day to come when we can map an entire animal to a computer model -or even human-, so animals won't be necessary anymore for this kind of procedure. How many years away do you guys think we are from that dream?
The current trend-line puts computing power at the level of the human brain in 10 years or so. However, processing power increases has been slowing down lately both in terms of time and the amount of money required for each new advance.
In addition, actually modeling a brain is not the same thing as having the computing power to do so. Our current chips have billions of transistors. However, our most sophisticated neural networks have a million nodes or so, I believe.
So we're a ways away from simulating a brain, human or otherwise. It's definitely more than 10 years. Probably 20 or more. And since we can't really predict computing power that far out, it's really hard to predict meaningfully.
In addition, actually modeling a brain is not the same thing as having the computing power to do so. Our current chips have billions of transistors. However, our most sophisticated neural networks have a million nodes or so, I believe.
So we're a ways away from simulating a brain, human or otherwise. It's definitely more than 10 years. Probably 20 or more. And since we can't really predict computing power that far out, it's really hard to predict meaningfully.
That depends largely on whether you want to model mites or mammals.
We could probably make a computer model of tiny arthropods in 2017, if someone were willing to throw piles of money at the problem. A computer model of a human will be more difficult.
But also consider that an acceptably accurate model of the human brain would be an AI. You would still be experimenting on a person.
We could probably make a computer model of tiny arthropods in 2017, if someone were willing to throw piles of money at the problem. A computer model of a human will be more difficult.
But also consider that an acceptably accurate model of the human brain would be an AI. You would still be experimenting on a person.
I'd definitely consider a fully emulated human brain another human, because by the premise that's fully emulated, it will also feel desires, and have survival instincts. That'd be another moral debate -similar to slavery-, because there will be people that would emphatize with them, and there will be others that will think they're just "machines".
But that's talk for another topic. On this case, you'd want to emulate only the physical functioning of our brain and body and not our minds.
But that's talk for another topic. On this case, you'd want to emulate only the physical functioning of our brain and body and not our minds.
The emulation program becomes the mind. You cannot avoid it. The natural consequence of the boot-up sequence for a real human brain is a human consciousness. If you create a precise and accurate model of a human brain in software, and emulate its physical functions, the emulation program contains the consciousness.
If you try something clever, like disconnecting all motor controls and sensory inputs, you now have a person who is blind, deaf, numb, anosmic, and paralyzed. The horror of that situation is compounded if you are emulating over a scanned copy of a cadaver's brain.
If you try something clever, like disconnecting all motor controls and sensory inputs, you now have a person who is blind, deaf, numb, anosmic, and paralyzed. The horror of that situation is compounded if you are emulating over a scanned copy of a cadaver's brain.
When that happens, we'll have fully emulated human brains and basically everything will be solved (or destroyed).
Computation will never be cheap enough to get accuracy. Biology is too dynamic.
I think saying 'computation will never be __________' is usually just wrong. We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body, and there's no technical limitation on putting a ton of supercomputers together to do what OP suggested. It's more of a matter of waiting until it's economically worth it.
> We have a decent understanding now of the complexity of a human body
I fundamentally disagree. We have models, sure, but they're approximative, not predictive, and I don't see any indication we'd be able to get prediction ever. It's very difficult to understand how biological approximation layered over chemical and physical approximation could give any benefit we get now from experimentation.
Among other things, there is no such thing as model verification.
I fundamentally disagree. We have models, sure, but they're approximative, not predictive, and I don't see any indication we'd be able to get prediction ever. It's very difficult to understand how biological approximation layered over chemical and physical approximation could give any benefit we get now from experimentation.
Among other things, there is no such thing as model verification.
Isn't that what we practically have from rats? a "subset" of the human brain? I cringe every time I see on some tech/science news some headline: "this is the reason you do this, or you think that", and then reading the study, you find out it was conducted on rats...
If we are extrapolating results from rats to humans, why can't we just simulate a rat brain and avoid torturing more? Probably because rats are cheap, and supercomputers, well, are super expensive.
I don't think it would be difficult to simulate a fully functional rat brain with state-of-the-art technology and bright people.
If we are extrapolating results from rats to humans, why can't we just simulate a rat brain and avoid torturing more? Probably because rats are cheap, and supercomputers, well, are super expensive.
I don't think it would be difficult to simulate a fully functional rat brain with state-of-the-art technology and bright people.
At this point we're unable to simulate a rat brain. We think that we will be able to, but it's orders of magnitude beyond what we can do right now. Our biggest neural net computers have about a 1 million nodes (last time I checked). Rats have billions of neurons in a configuration we have not fully mapped.
One day we may be able to do that, and when we can, I agree it would be nice to stop torturing rats.
One day we may be able to do that, and when we can, I agree it would be nice to stop torturing rats.
Sure, we might be able to simulate a rat brain at some level. I don't think we can do it with accuracy or precision, and certainly not use it as evidence of reality. You think the replication problem is bad now? It compounds when you build on bad evidence.
Another reason why we need strong, unbreakable encryption. Can you imagine something like this getting hacked/cracked?
Security experts have shown dangers in current medical devices like pace makes, where they literally could have killed a patient wirelessly because many of these devices have no security at all.
Stop kicking yourself. Stop kicking yourself. Stop kicking yourself...
I cant help to feel sad for the monkey. I'm not sure this is the way research should be done. Why not try this on a smaller scale animal first before doing it on a monkey?
Also you don"t need to cut the spinal cord todo data analysis.
Also you don"t need to cut the spinal cord todo data analysis.
Because of this sentiment, western nations are going to be leaps and bounds behind China and other nations when it comes to technologies /treatments derived from CRISPR.
When George Church and ithers called for a moratorium on CRISPR based research, Chinese scientists said suit yourself and cintinued doing research on it. When the day comes that wr can cinduct research like this with simulations and can spare beasts unnecessary pain, im all for it.
I find it more peculiar that people will treat a dog or other subhuman creature better then they will homeless person.
When George Church and ithers called for a moratorium on CRISPR based research, Chinese scientists said suit yourself and cintinued doing research on it. When the day comes that wr can cinduct research like this with simulations and can spare beasts unnecessary pain, im all for it.
I find it more peculiar that people will treat a dog or other subhuman creature better then they will homeless person.
> I find it more peculiar that people will treat a dog or other subhuman creature better then they will homeless person.
Maybe a tad off topic, but as a older millennial growing up in "dog" culture, thank you for saying this. The times I have seen my fellows, heck even my places of employment, bend over backwards to help the "Humane" society (ironic name, isn't it?), or hold puppy adoption events, or donate supplies to local shelters is astounding. Certainly commendable, but I wish the same enthusiasm was met for our fellow human beings as well. I wish we held "Adopt a child" events as much as we held "adopt a stray or rescue" events. I like those ads I hear sometimes about "You don't have to be perfect to be a foster parent" My wife and I are considering it. Maybe if it was more visible it would help push us over the cliff, and many others as well.
Maybe a tad off topic, but as a older millennial growing up in "dog" culture, thank you for saying this. The times I have seen my fellows, heck even my places of employment, bend over backwards to help the "Humane" society (ironic name, isn't it?), or hold puppy adoption events, or donate supplies to local shelters is astounding. Certainly commendable, but I wish the same enthusiasm was met for our fellow human beings as well. I wish we held "Adopt a child" events as much as we held "adopt a stray or rescue" events. I like those ads I hear sometimes about "You don't have to be perfect to be a foster parent" My wife and I are considering it. Maybe if it was more visible it would help push us over the cliff, and many others as well.
By all means, I heartily recommend it. I grew up with an adoptive brother from the age of 8. I honestly think I'd be a less complete and more spoiled/selfish person if I grew up as a single child. He now has a wife and child and the rest of us have a new, extended family. Even though I have a degree in Economics, It's not hyperbolic to say that things like these are truly the priceless things that make life worth living.
I think that "if we don't do it, the reds will get there first" is not a good argument in an ethical debate. Maybe the argument that right now people are suffering because they can't walk or have some other affliction whose cure requires animal testing carries more weight.
Considering Americans how much meat Americans consume, there really shouldn't be an ethical debate. Killing animals to save human lives is more ethically sound than killing them because they taste delicious.
We could also make even faster progress by experimenting on humans. If China does that, perhaps we should also do it to keep up with them. We could solve the homeless problem at the same time.
I tend to agree that western nations will lag, but I don't think that makes a good argument for doing it.
I tend to agree that western nations will lag, but I don't think that makes a good argument for doing it.
> We could also make even faster progress by experimenting on humans.
Do you find animal testing in the service of medical research unethical? I'm not advocating for animal testing for cosmetics, fashion, or profit, but in the service of saving human lives or something similar to the simian heroes of NASA
Do you find animal testing in the service of medical research unethical? I'm not advocating for animal testing for cosmetics, fashion, or profit, but in the service of saving human lives or something similar to the simian heroes of NASA
"The experiments are more of a progression than a sudden breakthrough: they are based on a decade of work in rats, Courtine says, and the monkeys reacted in very similar ways."
Do you also feel sad for the millions of animals that live in miserable conditions for months/years just to be eaten by us afterwards? This is arguably less of a torture to a much smaller number of animals, yet it is heavily regulated in most countries.
I have a lot of friends who are farmers. Those animals dont live in miserable conditions. And when they are killed, its in an instant. Heck i even feeded cows and pigs.
Its something different to experiment on a living animal.
However I do understand its important for research. However its a difficult subject.
Its something different to experiment on a living animal.
However I do understand its important for research. However its a difficult subject.
Monkeys are so close to us genetically speaking.
You can't compare a monkey with a cow.
Yes.
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Courtine's lab have already done a lot of experiments on rats for several years now [1].
[1]: https://youtu.be/ejwEqpV8ak4
[1]: https://youtu.be/ejwEqpV8ak4
Just curious what you would think if they cloned a monkey and then did the operation to the cloned monkey? Would you still feel sad for the monkey if you knew that the only reason it existed was for this one purpose?
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Seems like a zombie scenario. Where dead bodies are controlled wirelessly through implants.
Haha, we are already there. Here's the instructions from 2014 via a 15 year old: http://www.instructables.com/id/Control-a-Cockroach-With-Ard...
Holy shit. That made me queer at the same time fascinated
Wait, that made you homosexual? I'm going to assume that was a spellcheck or non-native speaking error...
Queer can also mean strange, and indeed that was a historical meaning for quite some time.
This is not going to work if you break your back more than once...
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The commute is exhausting — on occasion he has even flown to Beijing, done experiments, and returned the same night. But it is worth it, says Courtine, because working with monkeys in China is less burdened by regulation than it is in Europe and the United States"
I personally know researchers who have to take similar measures to be able to do their research.
When we are happy as a society to slaughter billions of animals every year for food (usually keeping them in appalling conditions beforehand) I don't understand how we can justify the restrictions we put on scientists.