[HN Gopher] A new brain implant automatically detects and kills ...
___________________________________________________________________
A new brain implant automatically detects and kills pain in real
time
Author : WaitWaitWha
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-07-06 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (singularityhub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (singularityhub.com)
| warent wrote:
| 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
| malfunctions of the brain at best, or completely lobotomizing
| someone at worst?
| mrtksn wrote:
| It sounds like they depend on the smoke test, doesn't it?
| Despite the huge advancements in biological sciences, when I
| get interested in something and read about it I would encounter
| the "We don't know why exactly it works but it works" much more
| often than I am used to. It feels so wrong.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Life follows a simple set of rules with an extensive set of
| exceptions.
| letswim420 wrote:
| Don't have access to the PDF but they might be using
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics
|
| This requires genetically engineered mice, which is why they
| only have this working for mice?
| jahabrewer wrote:
| Article specifically says they use optogenetics.
| Retric wrote:
| The brain is far more robust than often assumed. Read up on
| Anatoli Bugorski for example. He had rather significant brain
| damage yet there was virtually no damage to his intellectual
| capacity. He did suffer from seizures after the accident, but
| that's about it.
|
| These kinds of implants have serious risks including infections
| etc, but for people with long term chronic pain there are few
| options.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I've seen a few instances where pain management becomes the
| overall deciding factor in peoples' day to day life.
|
| "I can't go to work and feed my family because everything
| hurts so bad" can become a common statement for these people.
| In addition, addiction to painkillers, spending a huge
| percentage of your income at compounding pharmacies, and
| turning to illegal and possibly dangerous drugs to save a
| buck or to fill the gap between your needs and the insurance
| companies' coverage are all issues that a non-chemical pain
| management system like this could solve.
|
| I'm sure it's dangerous and weird to toy with your brain but
| for many people in America alone the risk would be more than
| worth the reward.
| goldenkey wrote:
| As a chronic pain sufferer,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragyna_speciosa basically
| saved my life.
|
| The DEA tried to ban it a few years ago but too many cancer
| patients testified before Congress how well it worked
| compared to the prescription opioids. The DEA was forced to
| bow out.
|
| The cool thing about Mitragyna speciosa is that it's a
| tree, a pretty hardy one. In my experience, the older trees
| have more potent leaves, but ideally, one could plant this
| tree in their backyard and never have to worry about being
| dependent on outside help for their pain ever again. You
| just dry the leaves and make tea from them.
| after_care wrote:
| I'd also like to add that this new technology could
| actually have an impact on a smaller percentage of the body
| than pharmaceuticals do.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| 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.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| > 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
| have been overprescribing opioids for years and a non-
| trivial segment of the population (at least in the US) is
| addicted to them.
| superduperycomb wrote:
| I hope your friend can seek another doctor if this is
| debilitating. Empathy doesn't always get a fair voice in
| prescribing guidelines / decisions
| vultour wrote:
| Any reason for ibuprofen instead of paracetamol? Ibuprofen
| can damage your gastrointestinal tract.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Paracetamol can damage your liver. Neither are great
| options to take too much of.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Humans are capable of building nano-lasers in the lab as of
| 2009: https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/08/17/210962/the-
| small...
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| >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.
| Highmagnification (100x) view of the expression of YFP-ChR2 in
| the prelimbic PFC demonstrated the co-staining of pyramidal
| neuron markers (CaMKII) with YFP. Arrows point to examples of
| co-stained neurons.
|
| (from abstract and supplementary info, scihub is kind of down)
|
| On their own (generally speaking!), very few neurons "respond"
| to low intensity light. "Optogenetics" stuff like this inserts
| a gene encoding a light sensitive ion channel in order to make
| cells responsive to a specific wavelength of light.
|
| So there's two types of targeting here: Targeting gene
| expression to a certain population of cells, and then spatially
| targeting a group of those cells with the light - Blue light
| doesn't travel very far in tissue. (Also targeting multiple
| cell populations within a region using multiple colors of light
| + differently sensitive proteins).
|
| Of course your comment still stands - Presumably not _all_ the
| CamKII-positive PFC neurons are involved in nociception, and
| rats can 't talk about their conscious experience so the
| answers there are limited to what questions researchers chose
| to ask using the limited tools available.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _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 malfunctions of the brain at best, or
| completely lobotomizing someone at worst?_
|
| Many psychiatric drugs affect large parts of the brain despite
| the drugs' efficacies being determined by their effects on much
| smaller parts of the brain.
|
| For example, some anxiolytic and antidepressant effects are
| mediated by changes at certain serotonin-1A receptors in
| certain parts of the brain, yet common drugs like SSRIs change
| serotonin levels all over the brain and body.
|
| You could categorize SSRI-induced activation of 5HT2C receptors
| as a 'bizarre malfunction', as it causes increased anxiety and
| dysphoria, which is the opposite of what you'd want if you're
| trying to treat anxiety or depression.
|
| Alcohol works like this in the body, as well.
|
| I'm skeptical of most brain implants for other reasons[1],
| though.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27135696
| [deleted]
| bserge wrote:
| That's how most drugs primarily affecting the brain work. Not
| saying it's a good thing, but in the absence of better options,
| anything is better than nothing.
| krm01 wrote:
| I wonder how healthy this actually is. Isn't pain a signal the
| brain uses to alert you about a detected problem? Just
| eliminating the sensation of pain could mean your body would be
| unable to signal an issue that needs to be resolved.
| jakogut wrote:
| try: perform_task() except: pass
| Tarucho wrote:
| At first I thought the same as you, but for some chronic
| illnesses as rheumatoid arthritis where there is a lot of pain
| but no cure, the ability to turn pain on/off as needed (and
| under proper guidance) is probably something good.
| ashes-of-sol wrote:
| Perhaps in someone with normal pain response, sure. But there
| are conditions which result in being in an almost constant
| state of pain. I could see this being a very useful tool in
| regaining some quality of life for people trying to manage
| these conditions.
| juandazapata wrote:
| It is. Excerpt from [1]
|
| > An inability to feel pain and temperature often leads to
| repeated severe injuries. Unintentional self-injury is common
| in people with CIPA, typically by biting the tongue, lips, or
| fingers, which may lead to spontaneous amputation of the
| affected area. In addition, people with CIPA heal slowly from
| skin and bone injuries. Repeated trauma can lead to chronic
| bone infections (osteomyelitis) or a condition called Charcot
| joints, in which the bones and tissue surrounding joints are
| destroyed.
|
| 1: https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/congenital-
| insens...
| jliptzin wrote:
| You don't have to completely eliminate it. Maybe someone
| suffering from cluster headaches only has to go through a
| migraine level of pain to realize there is a problem, not
| suffer through childbirth level pain every time an attack comes
| on.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| This is why leprosy is terrible. No pain sensation when body is
| damaged even by the patient, themselves.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Complete elimination of pain is probably not a good idea, for
| sure.
|
| But the ability to actively shut off pain once you've
| acknowledged the problem, or at least numb it down to it not
| being completely debilitating, could be useful.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| >But the ability to actively shut off pain once you've
| acknowledged the problem
|
| That's not what this implant does though. It's all automatic
| within a few seconds which implies that you'd never be able
| to discern life threatening pain from stubbing your toe. It
| seems you'd receive an extremely short lived pain signal (if
| any) and then it'd be gone.
|
| You'd have to give manual control to the individual for your
| suggestion to work and that comes with its own issues of
| "abuse"
|
| >Once it detects an electrical signal that suggests "pain
| found," it sends the information to the "sleeper agent," a
| computer chip implanted in the front part of the brain. The
| chip then automatically triggers a light beam to stimulate
| the region, activating neurons that can override pain
| signals.
| Osiris wrote:
| I recently had a very large kidney stone and let me tell
| you... It was bad enough to make me vomit. In cases like this
| it would be great to be able to self-medicate the pain.
|
| However, I can also see how it could be abused to say "ah,
| it's not that bad" and not have the problem resolved. In my
| case, it could lead to permanent kidney damage.
| throwanem wrote:
| I had a 5mm stone in late 2018. Even if a therapy based on
| this research had existed at that time, I doubt anyone
| would have suggested brain surgery when I presented with an
| acute abdomen at the ER. Granted I did end up having to
| have surgery for another stone the following year, but that
| surgery definitely did not have anything to do with my
| brain beyond anesthesia. That's not really the end of a
| human in which urologists specialize, you know?
|
| It'd be one thing if I had a pre-existing chronic pain
| condition for which I'd already had such an implant
| installed, but even in that case I'd have to have enough
| access to ongoing care to have someone I could call and say
| "this hurts in a way that's new." The implant itself would
| need the same kind of management as does a pacemaker or
| ICD, I imagine. So it seems not tremendously likely that
| the scenario you describe would play out in practice.
|
| (In any case, I'm good enough at withstanding pain that I
| waited two full days before deciding it was time to go to
| the ER, and even at that raised the mild suspicion of the
| doctor who attended me on the basis of how I _wasn 't_
| screaming, vomiting, swearing, or otherwise showing much of
| anything beyond being pale and dehydrated. If it hadn't
| been for CT results unquestionably showing the calculus, I
| might've had some trouble with being misidentified as a
| drug seeker. So I'm not super sure the implant poses much
| more of a risk for inadvertent self-harm, you know? If I'd
| been in a worse way than I was, I could well have lost a
| kidney entirely through sheer stubbornness, no brain
| implant required.)
| collyw wrote:
| Meditation can do this to an extent.
| root_axis wrote:
| Sometimes this would be preferable to the alternative.
| [deleted]
| silverlight wrote:
| Reminds me of The Terminal Man
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Reminded me of Darkman, personally.
| bootmagic wrote:
| Sounds similar to what Saluda medical does.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| Yesterday I visited a friend with late stage cancer. He hasn't
| eaten or drunk anything for a few days. He doesn't really talk or
| move around anymore. I was just thinking a system like this would
| be perfect for him, if he could activate his morphine pump every
| time he feels pain. It's hard for his family to tell when they
| need to push the morphine button right now because he's non-
| verbal.
| bserge wrote:
| Late stage meaning incurable? If that's the prognosis, why not
| just end their suffering?
| jcims wrote:
| I don't know how well you know his family, but it would be good
| for them to get some advice from others that have been in that
| situation. I was in their shoes last year and it was incredibly
| stressful. I came out of it with a much clearer perspective.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Just by controlling pain you can control a person. If you implant
| a chip into a person that can remotely cause pain, you now have
| an electronic torture device, a torture device that does not
| leave marks.
| l1n wrote:
| Source paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-021-00736-7
| voidnullnil wrote:
| Guess how can I tell this thread is bait without even opening it.
| deeviant wrote:
| > For now, the device has only been tested in rats.
|
| Right, I'll be sure to check back in 10-15 years.
| collyw wrote:
| That's better than the covid vaccines!
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Is this supposed to be a joke? The vaccines had extensive
| human and animal testing.
| Caylio wrote:
| "extensive"
| sturza wrote:
| If we're not in pain, we're not alive.
| [deleted]
| sturza wrote:
| I think of pain as A signal, not the only one. So, to correct
| my assertion, i would say that we're not alive with the set of
| signals we have now. Then i would consider that alive means
| that we experience the same signals. BUT that means that a
| blind person is not alive. My initial statement is not accurate
| now.
| Sr_developer wrote:
| Hell no! Pain is one of the biggest causes of human suffering.
| Having said that, until something better is "invented" pain is
| absolutely necessary, all those people who cannot feel or have
| a high tolerance to pain are always hurting themselves
| involuntarily. You lose your feedback signal.
| echelon wrote:
| > If we're not in pain, we're not alive.
|
| That's a silly assertion. Pain isn't a hallmark of life--
| physical, mental, or otherwise. There's no 'merit' to it.
|
| There are plenty of organisms without pain receptors that are
| definitely alive.
|
| Pain doesn't correlate with how alive we are or the worth of
| our lives. Chronic pain sufferers would certainly rather not
| have pain.
| collyw wrote:
| It's often said about suffering, which pain is a subset of.
| bobmichael wrote:
| Your assertion is equally as silly though. Pain is not
| necessary for life, but it definitely has a lot of merit as a
| survival mechanism and danger signal.
| austinjp wrote:
| Buddhists might disagree, although there's a distinction
| between pain and suffering.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
| user-the-name wrote:
| I'm sure chronic pain sufferers will feel much better knowing
| that.
| codeulike wrote:
| ... in mice
|
| https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| Did you expect them to start testing it on humans before mice?
| codeulike wrote:
| No but I expect the 'in mice' to be part of the headline
| because its quite an important detail
| xwdv wrote:
| I wonder if there's any point in using this for military
| applications.
| isuckatcoding wrote:
| Have you watched the Manchurian Candidate?
| qayxc wrote:
| Pain is a vitally important function of the central nervous
| system. Children born without the ability to feel pain
| (congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis/HSAN IV)
| rarely live to puberty.
|
| There's very little to be gained from an implant that
| continuously supresses pain in an otherwise healthy person. It
| dramatically increases the risk of dying from preventable
| infections or permanently damaging tissue, bones and ligaments
| due to overburdening, untreated lesions or fractures.
|
| It'd basically decrease combat readiness in the long run.
| polypodiopsi wrote:
| Zynically this instantly came to my mind, too.
| yewenjie wrote:
| I'm curious, what are the preventive precautions to be taken to
| minimize the chances of chronic pain altogether?
| papito wrote:
| There is a neural disorder where people can't feel pain, and it's
| hell. You live your life wrapped in protective gear.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I'm sure there's a middle ground between our default level of
| evolutionary baggage and no pain at all though. I wouldn't mind
| keeping burns and broken bones being painful, but I'd love to
| do away with minor annoyances like stinging nettles, wasps, and
| things like that.
|
| Also being able to turn off pain to a specific problematic area
| would be nice too, I have a permanent headache from a
| neurological issue and it'd save me a lot on the quantities of
| CBD that goes into keeping that at bay!
| anotherman554 wrote:
| Imagine if you could turn down pain like hitting the snooze
| button on an alarm. "Yes, I know my bone has been broken and
| I'm working on addressing it, please snooze all pain signals
| from that area for an hour."
| shkkmo wrote:
| I think the useful distinction is between acute pain, which
| is generally very useful, and chronic pain, which has huge
| negative effects with no known upside.
| icelandicmoss wrote:
| Agree. I recently read Pain is Really Strange (Steve
| Haines) and it was such a perspective shift on my
| understanding of how different the two are. (The
| illustrations are fantastic as well.)
|
| https://uk.singingdragon.com/products/pain-is-really-
| strange
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| Don't think thats the intent here. Rather to help treat people
| with debilitating chronic pain.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| If memory serves, this is also why leprosy sufferers often miss
| extremities. Their nerves are cut by the initial bacterial
| infection, and repeated (unnoticed) cuts so the rest.
| cglong wrote:
| This reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror. The teenager has
| an implant that causes stressors to be blurred out, preventing
| anxiety.
|
| <spoilers> During a fight, she starts hitting her mom and,
| because of the involved stress, she's unable to see the physical
| damage she's causing, ultimately murdering her. </spoilers>
|
| If this was implemented broadly, it'd very quickly lead to
| reckless/dangerous behavior.
| canada_dry wrote:
| Eliminating pain != eliminating stress
|
| Though more broadly your point is likely correct that it will
| change _some people 's_ behaviour to do dangerous/stupid things
| because there's no negative feedback.
| varispeed wrote:
| > What's especially neat is that the stimulated brain region
| normally doesn't generate any sense of euphoria, the downfall of
| opioids. This means it's likely to decrease the chance of
| addiction.
|
| Ok, this is such a nonsense. Addiction is not caused by euphoria
| - it's caused because people can't stop taking it because of
| nasty withdrawals. Now, when you are using it for chronic pain,
| you don't usually feel any euphoria, but pain relief. I've been
| using prescribed opioids for years and I am really anxious about
| doctors falling for this kind of messaging. If I had my
| prescription stopped, that would be the end of life for me.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| How is it perceived? As a cessation of pain? Or like early users
| of morphine described, "There's a pain in the room somewhere but
| I'm not sure it's mine."
| iseethroughbs wrote:
| The article speaks about using this as a way to escape addiction
| to painkillers. Not so fast.
|
| Addiction is a phenomenon that predominantly happens in the
| brain, due to it constantly adapting to find homeostasis. And
| being unable to perceive pain when you should be is not
| homeostasis.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Opioid addiction is not like other addiction mechanisms. After
| prolonged use the gastrointestinal system is ravaged and when
| people want to stop they find themselves plagued not only with
| withdrawals symptoms but also by incredible abdominal pain, so
| they take more opioids, which worsens the pain, which requires
| more opioids to alleviate , which worsens the gastrointestinal
| damage and subsequent pain, and so on... It's a vicious circle
| called narcotic bowel syndrome, taking away the pain would go a
| long way to solving this issue.
|
| source: Am heavy opioid user
| canadianfella wrote:
| What's your point?
| bawolff wrote:
| It definitely didn't work well in that star trek episode where
| garak gets addicted to his pain implant.
|
| https://youtu.be/ESo8MM01Qv8
| Jarwain wrote:
| Couldn't this cause addiction to the implant instead? Or really
| nasty "withdrawals" if the implant is removed?
|
| Wouldn't be very different to opioids or painkillers; just
| different mechanisms if action for similar phenomenon
| alisonkisk wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > What's especially neat is that the stimulated brain region
| normally doesn't generate any sense of euphoria, the downfall
| of opioids. This means it's likely to decrease the chance of
| addiction. And because the system only stimulates the brain
| when it detects pain signals, it lowers the chance the brain
| adapts to the stimulation.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Yeah, seems like you could get "spoiled" by it and lack the
| mental resiliance to tolerate any pain if it's removed.
| maybeOneDay wrote:
| I think it means avoiding prescription of addictive substances
| rather than helping addicts. Unless I'm reading your comment
| wrong?
| nszceta wrote:
| 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 neural architecture
| - a motivational system based on heritable gradients of bliss.
| States of sublime well-being are destined to become the
| genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted
| that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely
| dateable event.
|
| Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and
| surgical anesthetics were unknown. The notion that physical pain
| could be banished from most people's lives would have seemed
| absurd. Today most of us in the technically advanced nations take
| its routine absence for granted. The prospect that what we
| describe as psychological pain, too, could ever be banished is
| equally counter-intuitive. The feasibility of its abolition turns
| its deliberate retention into an issue of social policy and
| ethical choice.
|
| https://www.hedweb.com/
| dantondwa wrote:
| Brave New World was meant to be a dystopia, not a model to
| follow!
| scandox wrote:
| > it is also instrumentally rational
|
| How is it meaningful to say that a goal or project is
| instrumentally rational? It may be instrumentally rational to
| pursue a goal or project without regard to the means and only
| focusing on the ends...In other words the people executing it
| are instrumentally rational. But surely the thing itself cannot
| be said to "instrumentally rational" - what would that even
| mean? The goal is the goal. That is a value judgement that can
| be pursued in an instrumentally rational manner, but cannot
| itself be anything other than a goal valued by someone.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Leave it to modern man to think we can rearchitect something so
| fundamental as pain and pleasure in the human experience
| without disastrous results.
| educaysean wrote:
| Let's think about the internet. Let's think about how it
| enables us to achieve instant communication all around the
| globe and freely share and distribute knowledge too great to
| hold in one's brain. I'd say the modern men are more than
| capable of overcoming biological barriers once thought to be
| fundamentally impossible to achieve.
|
| It might be a fairly rough road to get there, but I'm certain
| our understanding of how our brains perceive pain and
| pleasure will be dramatically different in a 100 years, and
| it'll be for the better.
| arsome wrote:
| > Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and
| surgical anesthetics were unknown.
|
| But opium sure as hell wasn't! And it seems to check most of
| your suggested boxes too, however I don't think it makes for a
| good society, perhaps you should consider why, because it's
| pretty much what you're suggesting.
|
| Why enjoy social interaction? Why enjoy arts? Why learn things?
| You'd be perfectly happy with more magic hedonism pills.
| Unpleasantness, and yes, pain is as important a part of being
| as any other part.
| [deleted]
| matt_heimer wrote:
| > The notion that physical pain could be banished from most
| people's lives would have seemed absurd. Today most of us in
| the technically advanced nations take its routine absence for
| granted.
|
| LOL, that's absurd. I'm working from bed (again) because of
| constant back pain that spikes to unbearable if I stay upright
| for too long.
| throwamon wrote:
| > in all sentient life
|
| I don't think we have to worry too much about ALL of sentient
| life, since all that's gonna be left of it soon is humans and
| pets and cattle.
|
| > most of us in the technically advanced nations take its
| routine absence for granted
|
| The absence of pain is not the absence of issues. Unless you
| can "solve" all (physical, psychological, societal) issues (and
| what would "solving" most of them even mean?), you're
| advocating for literally the cliche "treating the symptom and
| not the cause", Brave-New-World-soma-style.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| As someone with very mild / low-intensity chronic pain, this is
| promising. My number one fear, limiting me, is that it will get
| worse, despite medical assurances that it's unlikely. Tech like
| this could remove that fear and let me live my life (though with
| my personality, I have no doubt I will find something else to
| fixate on). I'm working on it with current approaches, but CBT
| and ssri's only work so well on me. I won't touch opiates with a
| ten foot pole, though for now, I don't need them. If I ever did,
| I'm sure my tune would change really fast.
|
| I have also been hopeful of CRISPR targeting of pain, mimicking
| those with a genetic congenital inability to feel pain.
| https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/04/01/could-crispr-gene-e... I
| am watching the progress, but when you suffer from pain and the
| anxiety from it, nothing comes soon enough. I'm also just a
| layman - if anyone here knows more and can comment on it, that
| would be cool.
|
| Last, be weary of snake oil when it comes to any medical
| condition. Many are unscrupulous.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Opioid receptor modulators are being researched as an avenue
| for treating pain[1]. They don't cause opioid tolerance or
| addiction, but do offer increased pain relief, and some are
| available today like CBD, THC and other cannabinoids.
|
| They seem kind of promising for pain that's alleviated well
| with opioids versus non-opioids.
|
| [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/118/16/e2000017118
| mactournier wrote:
| Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has some well-known benefits in
| short term, in diseases such as Parkinson's (ref
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41582-019-0145-9). Although,
| long term effects tend to fade in a lot of cases, and some
| patients have permanent neurologic damage after the procedure.
| Although exciting, there are a couple of non-surgical treatments
| to pain that have to be tried before invasive approaches.
| eplanit wrote:
| And next comes automatic detection and nullification of thoughts
| and feelings?
| kruasan wrote:
| Your comment is the exact plot of "The Want Machine", a story
| by Exurb1a.
| bserge wrote:
| Only feelings. Eliminating thoughts is kind of counter-
| productive.
| hirundo wrote:
| If this technique can relieve pain it can likely also cause it,
| and also cause pleasure. So it has the potential to become a
| technology for human puppetry. Or for self abuse, as in Larry
| Niven's wireheads. It isn't hard to imagine various modern
| regimes willing to implant control devices into prisoners,
| criminal or political.
| lumost wrote:
| There are a lot of regulatory concerns with these technologies
| due to this fear. Deep Brain Stimulation implants see the
| patient growing steadily accustomed to greater levels of
| stimulation - withdrawing the stimulation triggers deep
| existential depression.
|
| This isn't as significant of a concern with a patient who has
| chronic untreatable major depression. But there is a legitimate
| fear that these implants could be used to disastrous effects on
| healthy individuals.
| after_care wrote:
| We can already cause pain or pleasure easily. This isn't
| anything new. Think about how long the history of torture is.
| hirundo wrote:
| That's like, we can already print books, so digitizing them
| isn't anything new. Or, we can already walk from San
| Francisco to New York, a transcontinental railway isn't
| anything new.
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