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A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

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Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#121

Post by nonameiguess »

vultour wrote: post #85
hellbannedguy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so glad they are actively working on alleviating pain. I know a guy who had horrid back pain. He was ok with opoids. He even admitted they reduced his pain, but he just felt better about life being on them. His doctor just decided to not prescribe opoids for any reason. My friend is miserable now, and takes too much Ibuprofen.

Any reason for ibuprofen instead of paracetamol? Ibuprofen can damage your gastrointestinal tract.

For me, I choose ibuprofen more often than paracetamol because 1) paracetamol carries a fairly serious overdose risk and is one of the common drugs people accidentally kill themselves with, and 2) paracetamol is not a true anti-inflammatory and doesn't help nearly as much with arthritis. Ibuprofen doesn't just relieve pain but actively reduces inflammation.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#122

Post by hall0ween »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #54
warent wrote: post #3

I always feel so confused by--and skeptical of--these kinds of brain implant technologies. It says: "The chip then automatically triggers a light beam to stimulate the region, activating neurons that can override pain signals." Isn't that potentially stimulating millions or even hundreds of millions of neurons? We don't know what each individual neuron is doing. How is it possible to do this without causing bizarre m…

>The BMI decodes the onset of nociception via a state-space model on the basis of the analysis of online-sorted spikes recorded from the anterior cingulate cortex (which is critical for pain processing) and couples real-time pain detection with optogenetic activation of the prelimbic prefrontal cortex (which exerts top–down nociceptive regulation). In rats >Example ChR2 expression in the prelimbic PFC. Highmagnificat…

Expressing ChR2 at levels of CamKII is flipping crazy (but widely accepted by the research community). It makes up 6% of the proteins in the brain. Lol, I lol at optogenetic expression at that level as something that won’t have unintended consequences.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#123

Post by mysterydip »

filoeleven wrote: post #105
nszceta wrote: post #62

The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of…

Is there a section that discusses “pain as a warning system?” This sounds great for chronic pain, but I have a hard time conceiving of how removing the immediate pain response to environmental stimulus works here. Touch a hot stove => feel pain and recoil People without a pain response have all sorts of problems with incidental injuries that rise in mortality since they are unaware of them. I’m guessing that the site…

Isn't that basically what happened with leprosy? Didn't seem to work out too well for those folks.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#125

Post by m0llusk »

This sounds like a really bad idea. Controlling pain, maybe, but even than raises issues of what exactly is pain and what is control. What people are not seeing here is that pain is a generalized concept in the brain. The pain of loss, the pain of remembering, and so on are also pain and without that pain we are at risk of losing our humility and humanity.

I have some personal experience with this in an ex-friend who takes a lot of pain killers and has done a lot of terrible things to me and others apparently in part because he feels no pain over anything he does and hence no guilt. Possibly there is more going on there, but his successful avoidance of pain seems to be a significant contributor to his alienation from society.

Life is suffering. No suffering, no life. Putting bounds on that might make some sense, but eliminating it could erase much more.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#126

Post by 0xF57A »

Pain has been localized to a particular region of the brain? When?

I’m sure that the location of pain processing in the brain has been known for a long time. Opto-genetics has been around a long time too. I’m sure that this has already been done. Just like neuralink and neural pixels.

Every time you mess with the brain you are messing with a tuned system of interdependencies. There will be counter-intuitive consequences from doing something like this. It might interfere with your ability to go into shock after injury. It might perturb fundamental bits of your brain resulting in psychiatric injury. The only way to find out is to try it. Sign me up. There will be winners in the basket of simple electrode interventions.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#127

Post by qw »

kazinator wrote: post #115
zdragnar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad cannot feel pain in his feet- it is terrible, as he often doesn't know they are even injured until he leaves bloody footprints around the house, or infection sets in deeply. "Abolition" of all physical pain is an asinine desire that will only lead to our detriment.

OK, but suppose your brain could be notified that something is wrong with your foot, without it hurting?

Maybe it will be possible to only numb specific areas, so that you would still feel pain if you accidentally hurt yourself.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#128

Post by refurb »

nszceta wrote: post #62

The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of…

Considering people born with pain insensitivity end up severely damaging their bodies this sounds like a terrible idea.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#129

Post by Retric »

nonameiguess wrote: post #120
orthecreedence wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His doctor just decided to not prescribe opoids for any reason. From my unerstanding, you can only take them for about a week before they become addictive, and that in itself is fine, but they become less and less effective as time goes on as well. You've got to take more and more to get the same effect. Opioids are really only good for short-term pain. Also, doctors are really under the gun right now because they…

This is absolutely not true for everyone. I took oxycodone for three years without ever getting addicted, and it never stopped working. Thankfully, eventually enough surgeries and physical therapy finally worked to where I don't really need pharmaceutical pain management beyond normal OTC stuff, but for a while, there was no way I could have handled life without a whole lot of schedule II help, and I'm glad as hell t…

It’s a shockingly common outcome though. Long term opioid use occurs in about 4% of people following their use for trauma or surgery related pain.. The odds get much worse when prescribed for long periods.

Re: A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real time

#130

Post by buu700 »

filoeleven wrote: post #107
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paracetamol can damage your liver. Neither are great options to take too much of.

More research is being done nowadays on various terpenes for pain relief. Unfortunately, because it’s strongly associated the cannabis industry, it’s hard to get past all the noise to the good information like research papers. Most of the terpenes in cannabis strains are also found in other plants to varying degrees. Pure extracts are available and legal without question. I can’t say much about their efficacy though,…

I had a similar thought, but in the other direction. I would be very curious to see how controlled doses of cannabinoids / cannabis oils compare to common opioid prescriptions for severe chronic and acute pain.

As far as terpenes specifically, I've been hearing some recent positive buzz about linalool.

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