This is Your Brain on Technology

META interviews brain expert Gary Small

META: How do you measure brain activity? How does it actually work?

Gary Small: There are different ways of doing it. In many experiments, we do an MRI brain scan, which consists of taking a picture of the brain’s structure.

MRI scan of brain activity

The machine can be adjusted so that it measures blood-flow within the brain. We conduct the experiment by asking research volunteers to engage in a mental activity, and their brain’s blood-flow is measured during that activity. Then we are able to conclude if certain areas of the brain experience increased brain-flow whilst controlling this activity.

META: What kind of mental activity?

GS: Almost any form of mental activity can be measured – empathy, guilt, lying, memory retrieval, etc.

META: Are people tested while working with the Internet?

GS: They conduct a simulated Internet search while in the scanner. Web pages are presented through special goggles and they operate a keypad mouse at their side.

META: What are the results?

GS: People with greater Internet experience show greater brain activity, which shows that the brain can be trained to improve search effectiveness as well as the active neural circuits that control Internet searching.

META: What will be the next evolutionary leap in human brain development?

GS: I think we are now on the verge of that leap! We made leaps from the first tool, hundreds of thousands of years ago, to grammatical language and more complex social networking. I think the brain - computer - interface technology is going to be the next major leap, speeding up and expanding our brain capacity through external computers.

META: How? Can you tell us who is actually working on this? What hardware is involved? Are there any case studies of humans implanted with chips or equipped with memory back-ups?

GS: The following excerpt from my book, iBrain, may answer some of these questions:

Today we may marvel at the extraordinary technological advances of the digital age and how the high-tech revolution has dramatically altered our culture and our brain’s neural pathways. But if technological advances continue on their current trajectory, the near future may make today’s developments seem trivial, if not somewhat unsophisticated. The computer keyboard and mouse may be remembered as crude tools that caused annoying wrist and finger injuries as we enter an age when the future brain directly controls email, Web searches, and computer games through mind power alone. One can imagine a Future-Brainer musing, “Remember when Google was free?” After all, directory assistance was once free, as was dialing the Operator. Ah, but I date myself.

Researchers have already developed a neurochip that links together living brain cells and silicon circuits. The electronic currents in the semiconductor material of the chip record the electrical currents of the neuron, allowing direct communication between living cells and machines.

Scientists recently trained epileptic patients to control a computer cursor with their thoughts alone. While awaiting brain surgery, the brain surfaces of these patients were fitted with small signal-detecting electrodes, and the patients were asked to control the movements of a computer cursor linked to the electrodes. Though the patients experienced initial difficulties, eventually they were all able to control the cursor on the computer screen with 70 percent accuracy by merely imagining the motor movements involved in the task. As such brain-computer interface research advances rapidly forward, it will not only help us find ways to prevent and repair neural damage, but it also will lead to an era when our minds will directly control electronic devices – the post-keyboard age.

Brain-computer interface technologies detect and translate the brain’s physiological electrical signals in order to control an output device, such as a keyboard, computer cursor, or even a prosthetic limb. Initially developed to assist people with severe motor disabilities, these methods could lead to the next evolutionary leap in human brain development.

Researchers have used such technology to hook up a human volunteer to mentally type into a computer at up to 15 words a minute, about half the rate of writing by hand. As silicon-based technology picks up speed in the next few years, we can anticipate neurochips that allow people to mentally write on computers at speeds approaching normal speech.

And, it doesn’t have to involve brain surgery to get digitally hooked up. Rather than implanted neurochips, EEG electrodes can be placed on the scalp’s surface to monitor and translate neural activity. German neuroscientist Niels Birbaumer has developed implant-free technology that enables people to communicate by reading brain waves through the skin. While volunteers were hooked up to this skin-reading technology, researchers used functional MRI scanning to measure their cerebral blood flow and provided the moment-to-moment results to the volunteers, who were then able to control their brain wave output and play the computer game Pong, completely hands-free.

Brain-reading technology using pulsed ultrasonic signals to transmit information directly into the mind is in development, and Pentagon scientist Stu Wolf believes that within the next few decades, we’ll be wearing computer headbands for “network-enabled telepathy” that will allow us to transmit our thoughts directly from our minds, through the Internet, into the mind of someone else, also wearing a headband.

In other experiments, neuroscientists are refining methods to stimulate and measure brain function. Our current strategies for detecting brain activity involve monitoring relatively large functional brain regions and neural pathways. And, even using the tiniest electrodes, we still stimulate large groups of cells, charging up millions of them from just a single electric pulse.

Not far into the future, we will have the capacity to monitor and stimulate brain activity of individual cells or neurons. Scientists already have a new apparatus that uses a photosensitive protein controlled by a laser down to the millisecond, the time dimension of a brain cell’s natural communication speed. This technology will permit the manipulation of individual neurons through the laser’s stimulation. The cure for the senior moment of the future brain may be as simple as turning on a laser light-switch. And of course, we’ll soon be checking and correcting our neural circuitry through a remote control, perhaps the same device we use to keep track of our TiVo Playlist.

As our computers get faster and more efficient and cyber-brain devices become the norm, rather than struggling with a generational brain gap, we may be facing the computer/human brain gap – which has been a science fiction theme for years. For research or recreation, future generations, packing future brains, will likely create and play in virtual-world computer simulations of their ancestors – us.

For now, the digital technology train is speeding forward, and everyone, in their own way, is hopping on board. New technology can not only increase our efficiency, but it can simplify our lives and actually be fun. As we anticipate and manage the pitfalls, such as high-tech addiction, video game-brain, and too much multitasking, bringing together Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants should continue as one of our most pressing priorities.

As we bridge the brain gap and learn to communicate and work together at all ages, we’ll be poised to adapt to whatever new advances come our way.

As a result, we will not only survive the technological alteration of the modern mind, but thrive because of it.

META: Does this technological leap also mark a spiritual evolution? What kind of emotional and spiritual impact does this have on humanity?

GS: It will definitely alter our conceptual vision of ourselves and others. We're already seeing this. Students today are constantly in stress from moment to moment with Twitter and MSN, Skype, Facebook. Hooked on the computer, behaving like an ant colony, constantly networking. Imagine what this will be like when we have seamless brain - Internet technology driving, for example, Twitter. I mean, you will simply be able to think and then become aware of what everybody else is doing! It will be an altered society quite along the likes of those predicted by science fiction.

META: Does increased brain activity, or increased networking, actually mean ‘stress’?

GS: No – it depends on the context.

META: Do you think human beings have a soul, and if so, where is it actually located?

GS: How do you define ‘soul’? I think we all have the perception that we have free will and self-consciousness. I think our perception of the soul will evolve and it is evolving. We always have the idea that we're individuals, but we're very social animals. We like to be connected and we like to be in conversation, whether it's face-to-face or face-to-Facebook. Maybe we still need to find a balance between this individuality - which we conceive of as the soul - and our social community.

META: Favorite "brain-food"?

GS: Probably fish, which is good for the brain flow, but then I also like Indian food, which uses curcumin, a spice that is very protective for the memory.

META: A good daily brain activity?

GS: Exercise is the most protective thing for the brain, and the best type is probably a half hour to an hour of cardio.

META: Favorite science fiction movie?

GS: The First Matrix

META: Favorite website?

GS: My own blog on Psychology Today.

(All illustrations by Uli Knörzer)