Neurons that Wire Together, Fire Together

 

  "Steve Wozniak: What do you do? You're not an engineer. You're not a designer. You can't put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board! The graphical interface was stolen! So how come ten times in a day I read Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do?

Steve Jobs: Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra." 

Throughout the film, ‘Steve Jobs’ (2015), it is clear that innovators throughout history had a massive influence on Steve Jobs (played by Michael Fassbender) especially when the audience is brought backstage of a theater where black and white blown-up photos of individuals such as Bob Dylan and Lucille Ball filled the walls. As Jobs rushes past these halls, a man asks Jobs’ who a particular man is. Steve tells him that it’s Alan Turing who single-handedly ended World War II and invented the personal computer. This is one of my favorite scenes because not many people know who Alan Turning is and that he is the reason behind the apple logo.

In 1954, computer scientist and brilliant mathematician Alan Turing who was suspected for a long time now of killing himself with a poisoned (cyanide to be more specific) apple. At that time, being romantically involved with a person of the same gender was against the law and of the British government had him admit to the relationship. The half-eaten apple was found at Turnings’ bedside at the time of his death. At first the bite on the apple logo was decided upon so that people could distinguish that it was an apple and not some other rounded fruit such as an orange, peach, or a cherry. Before this, many had speculated that the apple logo came from the religious story of Eve biting into forbidden fruit or even of Newton’s discovery of gravity.

When Job is asked if Turing was the reason behind the Apple logo (because the apple logo has a bite taken out of it), Jobs admitted that it didn’t but that he wish it did as it would have made for a great story. Both Steve Jobs and Steve Woz knew of Turning and his milestone accomplishments towards computers as well as coding which pushed them to honor Turning by commenting on his unique death by removing a single bite from the apple graphic they had picked to represent their company.

  "Andy Hertzfeld: We're not a pit crew at Daytona. This can't be fixed in seconds.

Steve Jobs: You didn't have seconds, you had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time.

Andy Hertzfeld: Well, someday you'll have to tell us how you did it."

Introduction:

Scientists have discovered a new treatment for spinal cord damage. Researchers in Switzerland found a way for monkeys that have experienced spinal cord injuries to regain control of non-functioning limbs. Through what they call, ‘Brain Spinal Interface’, their research revealed that paralyzed individuals could be able to walk again in the near future.

This unique system concentrates on the lower part of the body. Monkeys with spinal cord damage that paralyzed their one leg quickly regained the ability to walk with a wireless connection from the brain to the spinal cord below the injury. This achievement is a recent advancement in technological treatments for spinal cord damage. It allows for a monkey to use a wireless system instead of being tied down to a computer. The way it works is that it uses new developments in brain recording and nerve stimulation. A computer is required to decode and translate brain signals which are then sent to the spinal cord.

This system has successfully worked on monkeys, but more research is needed in order for the system to be safe for a human. The way in which these new breakthrough technological treatments work is with the use of robotic hands in monkeys (with humans it would be through brain control). These robotic hands have actually helped a paralyzed man regain some use of his hand through an implanted chip in his brain.  The chip allows for the brain to send electrical signals to stimulate the nerves to allow paralyzed rats to walk again.

The critical link that exists between decoding the brain and the stimulation's sent by the spinal cord is now built through this brain-spine interface. This link allows for the communication from the brain to the rest of the body of a completely paralyzed patient the ability to control their leg movements. 
Researchers surgically placed implants in the brain and spinal cord of monkeys (aka: the neuro-prosthetic interface) which acts like a highway or bridge between the brain and spine.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) or brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) involve real-time direct connections between the brain and a computer. Bidirectional feedback between the user and the system produces physical changes that can restore some degree of motor or communicative control for individuals with lost limbs, extensive paralysis or who are significantly neurologically compromised. A BCI can enable an individual with severe brain or bodily injury to regain some degree of agency. By providing the subject with the relevant type of feedback, the device may enable her to translate an intention into an action despite the inability to perform voluntary bodily movements.

There are two types of feedback with a BCI. The first concerns feedback about the outcome of a self-initiated, BCI-mediated action, such as moving a computer cursor or robotic arm. It provides only indirect feedback about brain activity. (This has a greater potential to restore some behavior control so that one can perceive the success or failure of their mental act.) The second type concerns direct feedback about the level of brain activity itself. Although it is still at an early stage of development, an EEG- or fMRI-based BCI might also enable minimally conscious individuals or those with complete locked-in syndrome to communicate wishes about medical treatment when they are unable to do this verbally or gestural. 

 

"Steve Jobs: What if the computer was a beautiful object? Something you wanted to look at and have in your home. And what if instead of it being in the right hands, it was in everyone's hands?

John Sculley: We'd be talking about the most tectonic shift in the status quo since...

Steve Jobs: ...ever." 

Back to Basics (Walking):

Neurons in the brain communicate with those in the spinal cord through electrical signals. These electrical signals that originate in the brain’s motor cortex travel down to the lumbar region in the lower spinal cord, where they activate motor neurons that coordinate the movement of muscles responsible for extending and flexing the leg.

When the upper spine endures severe trauma or injury it can permanently block the communication between the brain and lower spinal cord. Although the neurons in the motor cortex and spinal cord can still be fully functional, they are no longer able to coordinate their normal activity. The goal of the study was to re-establish some of that communication. 

The Brain:

The human brain is capable of accepting an incredible amount of information about the world in addition to the information picked up from the five human senses (i.e. touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight). It controls all unconscious tasks such as regulating body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing including conscious ones such as physical movement (i.e. walking, talking, standing, and sitting). It is because of our brains that we can dream, reason, think, and experience emotions.  

The cerebellum or "little brain" is folded into itself making up numerous lobes located above and behind the pons. This region of the brain receives sensory input from the spinal cord, motor input from the cortex and basal ganglia, and position information from the vestibular system. The vestibular system is what helps us maintain our posture, balance, and gives us our spatial orientation. Because this system is found in the inner part of the ear, with it is attached the vestibulocochlear nerve (the eighth cranial nerve) and certain parts of the brain that interpret the information the vestibulocochlear nerve receives.

The cerebellum then integrates the information it receives from outgoing motor pathways from the brain to coordinate movements. This area of the brain has within it all the centers that receive and interpret sensory information, initiate movement, analyze information, reason, and experience emotions making the cerebellum the largest part of the human brain. Areas responsible for accomplishing such tasks are located in various regions of the cerebral cortex (outside layer of the cerebellum and is known as GRAY MATTER) whereas the inside is known as WHITE MATTER.

"John Sculley: The board believes you're no longer necessary to this company.

Steve Jobs: I sat in a garage and invented the future because artists lead and hacks ask for a show of hands!"

Our central nervous system not only processes integrated information, but it also regulates all of the conscious and unconscious processes within the body. The brain is made up of 100 billion nerve cells called neurons. These cells, neurons, have the ability to obtain and deliver electro-chemical signals across long distances. These signals which can travel up to several feet can send messages to other signals- communicating with each other.

The spinal cord can be viewed as a separate entity from the brain, or merely as a downward extension of the brain stem. It contains sensory and motor pathways from the body, as well as ascending and descending pathways from the brain. It has reflex pathways that react independently of the brain, as in the knee-jerk reflex.

The three main types of neurons that make up the nervous system are the sensory neurons ( carry signals to outer parts of the body (periphery) into the CNS), motor neurons (carry signals from CNS to outer parts (muscles, skin, glands) of your body), and interneurons (connect various neurons within the brain and spinal cord).

 Research:

With the brain spinal interface, the implant can detect brain activity, send this information to a computer that decodes these very same signals, and then sends the spinal cord instructions in its lumbar region to begin walking. The system operates by regulating these signals just as described (i.e. recording stimulations from the motor cortex of the brain to trigger coordinated electrical stimulation of nerves in the spine that are responsible for locomotion). 

When the system is turned on, the primates in the study revealed relatively close to normal movements in locomotion. The work could help in developing a similar system designed for humans who have had spinal cord injuries. A brain-controlled spinal stimulation system may enhance rehabilitation after a spinal cord injury and this new research is a great leap forward to testing such a possibility. 

BrainGate (a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University, Brown, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Providence VA Medical Center, and Stanford University) created a type of sensor technology in a pill-sized form for human ingestion. These pills were used in pilot clinical trials (a study led by Brown neuroengineer Leigh Hochberg in which people with tetraplegia) where people with tetraplegia were able to operate a robotic arm simply by thinking about the movement of their own hand. 

The brain-spinal interface used a pill-sized electrode array implanted in the brain to record signals from the motor cortex. A wireless neurosensory sends the signals gathered by the brain chip wirelessly to a computer that decodes them and sends them wirelessly back to an electrical spinal stimulator implanted in the lumbar spine, below the area of injury. That electrical stimulation, delivered in patterns coordinated by the decoded brain, signals to the spinal nerves that control locomotion.

To calibrate the decoding of brain signals, the researchers implanted the brain sensor and wireless transmitter in healthy macaques. The signals relayed by the sensor could then be mapped onto the animals' leg movements. They showed that the decoder was able to accurately predict the brain states associated with extension and flexion of leg muscles.

The ability to transmit brain signals wirelessly was critical for this work. Wired brain-sensing systems limit freedom of movement, which in turn limits the information researchers are able to gather about locomotion. By having the ability to wirelessly map the neural activity in normal contexts and during natural behavior.  To reach the goal of neuro-prosthetics that can someday be deployed to help human patients during activities of daily life, such untethered recording technologies will be critical.

Having a deep understanding and knowledge in understanding how brain signals influence locomotion with spinal maps (which identified the neural hotspots in the spine responsible for locomotor control) enabled the team to identify the neural circuits that should be stimulated by the spinal implant.

"Steve Wozniak: They want ports!

Steve Jobs: They don't get a vote. When Dylan wrote "Shelter from the Storm" he didn't ask people to contribute to the lyrics. Plays don't stop so the playwright can ask the audience what scene they'd like to see next."

 Results:

The researchers tested the entire system on two macaques with lesions that spanned half the spinal cord in their thoracic spine. Macaques that had experienced this particular form of injury generally regain functional control of the affected leg over a period of about a month. The team tested their system in the weeks following the injury. They found no volitional control over the affected leg. The study revealed that with the system turned on, the animals began spontaneously moving their legs as they walked on the treadmill. Kinematic comparisons with healthy controls showed that macaques that had lesions (with the aid of brain-controlled stimulation) had the ability to show almost normal patterns of locomotion.

"John Sculley: You're gonna end me, aren't you?
Steve Jobs: You're being ridiculous. I'm gonna sit center court and watch you do it yourself."

"Steve Jobs: Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things - they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Links:
(A)http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v539/n7628/full/nature20118.html

(B)http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/brain.htm

(C)http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/science/wireless-brain-spine-connection-paralysis.html?_r=0

(D)http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/paralysed-monkeys-walk-again-brain-spine-interface-a7408281.html

 (E)https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161109133133.htm

*Please note! These images are not mine. They were found on various tumblr sites! If any are yours please let me know so that I can give you credit for them! Also the people in the images have no relation to the diseases, illnesses, or cancers I write about. Thanks so much & enjoy~