April 24, 2004
How To Hack Your Brain
An interesting article in yesterday's Slate describes "a buyer's guide to recreational brain scanning." The author, Steven Johnson, describes that brain imaging technologies have been used over the years for 'medical pursuits' but more and more we see media stories about an analysis of brain activity directed toward non-medical interests. For example, there are numerous articles describing the use of brian scans in people as they watch TV sitcoms or think about soft drinks. On Tuesday, the New York Times ran a front-page story about a study that analyzed the brains of political partisans as they viewed Kerry and Bush campaign ads. 
Johnson points out "if you thought Googling for yourself was the sign of a self-obsessed culture, get ready for the personal brain." He discusses the pros and cons of biofeedback, neurofeedback, cortisol tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging.
April 20, 2004
Neurotechnology Research Grants
The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced additional funding for the neurotechnology research, development and enhancement program. Zack Lynch at Brain Waves points out that "neurotechnology is being driven by the convergence of advances in Nanotechnology, Information Technology, Biotechnology and Cognitive Science." The National Nanotechnology Initiative over the past decade, is now targeting the National Science Foundation's attention on creating a similiar initiative to understand how these technologies will create new tools to enhance human performance.
Some of the topic areas include:
Information Technology
1. Software to translate neuroimaging data from one data format into another
2. Algorithms for understanding human neuroimaging data
3. Tools for real-time analysis of neurophysiological events
4. Dynamic monitors of intracranial pressure and spinal fluid composition
5. Devices for non-invasive diagnosis and precise identification of pathogens
6. Tools, technologies and algorithms for neuroprosthesis development
7. Non-invasive tools to assess damage, monitor function in brain tissue
8. Tools for data mining into genomics and proteomics of the nervous system
Certainly worth exploring.
April 13, 2004
BrainGate
Again, the stuff of science fiction becomes a reality. A company called Cyberkinetics has created a technology that allows for the creation of direct, reliable and bi-directional interfaces between the brain, nervous system and a computer.
Their technology platform is called BrainGate. It is the hope of this technology to translate thought into direct computer control. Cyberkinetics describes that "such applications may include novel communications interfaces for motor impaired patients, as well as the monitoring and treatment of certain diseases which manifest themselves in patterns of brain activity, such as epilepsy and depression."
The BrainGate neural interface device is based on ten years of development at Brown University, it is intended to provide severely disabled patients with a permanent, direct and reliable interface to a personal computer. Pending continued preclinical research success and regulatory approval by the Food and Drug Administration, the Company intends to initiate a pilot clinical trial this year.
AATP Interactive recently discussed computer brain interfaces based on work being done in University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada and presented at the Society for Neuroscience 2003 Annual Meeting.
April 05, 2004
Knowledge-Management Systems
The current Nature offers a solution for scientists who need to share information - knowledge management software. In large organizations and companies, it is difficult to track who knows what and who is working on what project. The author describes that "it's a common frustration in scientific life: you have a seemingly simple query, but you aren't sure who can answer it. A basic experimental procedure, for example, might already have been mastered by someone else in the same building or company. Talking to that person could save you weeks of work - but how do you find them?
Knowledge-management systems build up a picture of who knows what in an organization, and uses the information to connect queries with answers. These systems have had some success in the pharmaceutical industry. And with electronic networking now embedded in scientific life, the infrastructure is there to implement knowledge management in new ways. Knowledge management can be considered as an organizational memory bank. Every problem that a staff member solves, from testing a candidate drug molecule to curing a glitch in computer code, adds to this memory. And if this treasure trove is accessible to others, the problem need only be solved once.
Electronic Memories
Trying to maintain a record of everything is certainly impractical, and anything useful can be lost in a sea of trivia. According to the article, the real communication takes place in peer-to-peer communication, not by managerial fiat. New knowledge-management software has also emerged in recent years. Employees of the pharmaceutical company Aventis are using one new system, called KnowledgeMail.
One researcher at Aventis looking for a specific procedure used KnowledgeMail to search the company's 5,000 research staff and 75,000 employees, believeing that there was a good chance that someone in Aventis had already solved these problems. KnowledgeMail quickly found two researchers in the company's US division at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, who could supply the information.
Mail Mining
The software, produced by Tacit of Palo Alto, California, develops an expertise profile of users based on words and phrases extracted from their e-mails. Thus, if one researcher gets a lot of e-mails about macrophages, the system assumes that they are an expert on the topic and sends appropriate questions their way. This allows expert profiles to be generated with little effort by users. Tacit's software has also been used by drug company AstraZeneca and technology firm Lockheed Martin; and KnowledgeMail has now evolved into a product called ActiveNet. It is estimated that KnowledgeMail saved the company 7.8 person months by minimizing duplicative efforts. The software builds up expertise profiles using e-mail scans, information on web pages visited and documents viewed.
Hewlett Packard and many other are invesing in this techology also known as a "System for Social Harvesting of Community Knowledge (SHOCK)" Recently, Google has announced "gmail" a free email service which will use similar technology by combining email and search capabilities to target advertisements based on email content. There has been some controversy over privacy concerns since its announcement but Google says the content of users' email would remain private because the process would be fully automated. "No humans read your emails to target the ads," Google's web site says.
Nature 428, 462 - 463 (01 April 2004)