In the trenchesMilitary implications of advances in brain research
Researchers funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) have developed a new way to visualize the complete brain in three-dimensional imaging. The breakthrough could advance the field of rapid brain imaging, allowing scientists to see in greater detail how parts of the brain interact on a cellular level and better understand those interactions throughout the brain. A former DARPA program manager recently told a policy group that “It turns out the expert marksman has a brain state, a state that they enter before they take the perfect shot. Can I teach a novice to create this brain state? The answer was yes.”
A team of Stanford University scientists funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed a new way to visualize the complete brain in three-dimensional imaging. The breakthrough could advance the field of rapid brain imaging, allowing scientists to see in greater detail how parts of the brain interact on a cellular level and better understand those interactions throughout the brain.
“I absolutely believe this is going to transform the way that we study the brain and how we perform neuroscience research,” said Justin Sanchez, program manager for the Neuro Function, Activity, Structure, and Technology (Neuro-FAST) program at DARPA. “What we’re saying here today is that we can develop new technology that changes how we observe and interact with the circuits of the brain.”
Today, scientists explore the brain by studying electrical activity in a technique called EEG, or by observing hemoglobin flow under functional magnetic resonance called fMRI. Instead of relying on the brain’s electromagnetic activity to visualize the brain, the new technique outlined in the journal Nature Protocols, uses light to reveal causal relationships in the brain’s circuits. “It’s all about optical interfaces for the brain, optical techniques to image the brain, optical techniques to record activity from the brain and optical techniques to record neurons and their firing effects from other neurons,” said Sanchez.
According toDefense One, Sanchez and DARPA officials have noted that the Neuro-FAST program is meant to advance brain research in the larger context. Based on its history, however, the Pentagon may explore the research for military applications.
Amy Kraus, a former DARPA program manager, recently told a group at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies about her work in finding the mental secret that preceded good marksmanship. “It turns out the expert marksman has a brain state,” she said, “a state that they enter before they take the perfect shot. Can I teach a novice to create this brain state? The answer was yes.” By recognizing that brain state, researchers were able to improve the marksmanship of regular people by 100 percent. “These are recordable, measurable, algorithmical,” she said.
Sanchez warns that scientists still have much to understand about improved performance through changes of brain state. “The neuroprocesses associated with those advanced functions — we don’t know what they are yet. We don’t know how all of those advanced circuits can produce those brain functions. That’s why we’re at the more basic level,” he said.
