Controlling brain waves

Here's an interesting tidbit on controlling brain waves. It is strikingly naive about what might be done with the ability to, much more quickly than with drugs, "slow down, speed up, or stop" any brain waves-- after all, those are your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions!

But for me, this highlighted how malleable the mind is. Buried within those brain waves is each of our perception of the "I", of the self. And they can be so easily modifed! The amazing thing about being human is that these factors of the mind can be modifed by choice; we can, through our own intentions, wreck great changes in the very way our brains process chemicals, and hence respond to inputs.

Don't get tangled in the metaphysics of that. Just contemplate it in your peripheral vision.


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CONTROLLING BRAIN WAVES. A new study conducted at George Mason
University confirms predictions that electrical fields can be used
to modify waves traveling through brain tissue. This is perhaps the
first example of electric modification of neuronal thresholds to
control wave movement. Indeed, it is one of the first times waves
have been controlled in an excitable medium through changing
thresholds. The researchers begin with a section of rat brain; the
tissue consists of 6 layers of 2-dimensional sheets of neurons. A
neural wave is initiated at one end of the network and the signal is
observed at the other end. By using electrical fields, the
excitability of individual neurons can be modified. Doing this can
slow down, speed up, or stop any wave propagating through the
sample. Previously neural waves had only been modified by
pharmacological means. This action can be negated only by washing
out the drug used, which takes seconds, whereas the electric method
takes only microseconds to have an effect. One potential
application for modifying brain waves would be in mitigating
epileptic seizures.