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From: maiden@sdcsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: who does it... // State of the art today?
Message-ID: <3959@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 25-Sep-87 09:27:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.3959
Posted: Fri Sep 25 09:27:22 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 08:07:21 EDT
References: <4319@spool.wisc.edu> <3048@hoptoad.uucp> <3050@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: maiden@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (VLSI Layout Project)
Distribution: usa
Organization: U.C. San Diego
Lines: 42

In article <3050@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>John, you're pretty much right about the state of the art.  I wouldn't bet
>on any serious neuro-electric interfacing being done in the next two
>decades.  There are a *lot* of problems.  You can't just stick wires
>into neurons.

Yes, but that is not the absolute only way to get this information.
For a good example of the state of the art, take a look at _Science_
(the Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science)
last month (I am unsure at the moment of the exact issue) where a
private lab called EEG Systems Laboratory published a paper about
measuring performance expectation through cortical EEG.

Unlike the connectionist air guitar, this is actual fact; EEGSL has
done other things with EEG deconvolution (according to them, another
paper is due to be published in _Nature_).

Some references: you might start with some of the books edited
by Kilx (there is only one Klix on the Melvyl library search in
the UC system).

Although I am not an expert in human NMR, preliminary results from
this sector of clinical medicine seem to make the system a promising
vector for real-time analysis of behavior (witness what has been
done, albeit very crudely, with the PET scanner).

The points made about the dynamic changes in the neural system are
all correct; however an extrinsic monitoring system would side-step
most of these concerns.  A Caveat: it is still unclear exactly what
sort of information _cannot_ be derived from electrical signals
(see Woody: Electrical Fields of the Brain); it is thought, however,
that the information lost would be primarily long term potentiation.

>And before closing, I'd like to make it clear that though the obstacles are
>formidable, I expect to see amazing breakthroughs before the end of my
>natural lifespan (I'm 25).

I echo this sentiment.

Edward K. Y. Jung
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