Quake3World

Similar technology has been used in Parkinson's patients for a couple of years now, and they've begun early trials on individuals with treatment resistant depression.

They discuss the possibility of abuse in brief, but the setting is physician controlled, and upping it a good deal might well result in brain damage (like early electro-convulsive therapy often did, and modern ECT still does to some extent).

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/7f ... drcrd.html



This woman, one of a handful with the brain electrode implants, seems to be responding quite well. Still too early to tell how others will fare in larger controlled studies.

I am still amazed at how we can do stuff around the brain and not damage it. I can understand open hart surgery and such. But the ability to open someones head up, and operate on it, not killing them is still a major miracle to me. I mean the brain is you, it is the one thing in your body that stores "you". I mean your brain is you, and you are your brain. And someone can open it up and insert thing in there. Wow, miracle.

Makes the idea of having a "soul" seem even more preposterous, doesn't it?

Mental illness as moral corruption was our response to these challenged individuals right up to the 20th century, still dominating many frames of human interaction (social, judicial, etc.).

Reminds me a bit of The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton:

A man gets electrodes implanted into his head to prevent seizures. One of the electrodes produces pleasurable results, and thus the patient (subcounciously) induces more and more frequent seizures to receive the pleasurable stimulation. Of course, then he goes on a murderous rampage.

But the ethics of producing pleasure on demand are quite interesting.