Neurosystems for National Security

I came across a research program at the Mind Research Network. It's called the Neurosystems for National Security and looks like it deals with the applications of brain technology towards improving the functioning of military personnel. Here's an excerpt;

MRN possesses the unique ability to utilize and combine functional imaging and brain scanning techniques (fMRI, MEG, EEG), computer modeling and simulation, cortical brain stimulation and genetics to investigate how the brain functions and how it can be made to function better for the safety, security, and reliability of our military and national security interests.

One potential benefit involves helping military and national security personnel make better decisions under stress. Biological changes occur in the brain and body in response to stress. These stress responses are intended to serve adaptive functions, but can also have a negative influence on cognition and behavior. One of our goals is to develop methods and techniques to leverage and modulate stress to optimize decision making. The ability to better modulate stress in times of crisis would be invaluable to both the foot soldier under fire and the general commander making critical national security decisions.

Many militaries have shown interest in brain research (see neurowarfare report). There are obviously a lot of ethical issues to this type of stuff. Should we really be pushing to use brain tools to improve the functioning of soldiers? There may be less benign things like using transcranial magnetic stimulation to reduce cognitive deficits associated with fatigue. Obviously if you could increase the sum total of cognitive or creative capacity of personnel it could have a huge effect on how well the military performs. There may be other radical stuff that might crop up in the next ten years that could be more ethically dubious.

Understanding the underpinnings of the stress response could enable soldiers who are better able to cope with being in battle. I've mentioned about using neurotechnology to amplify feelings of empathy. However, there is also the converse. New tools of neuromodulation might possibly selectively reduce these feelings temporarily to enable better soldiers who are less concerned about killing others. The insular cortex is a region of the mind that is involved with feelings of disgust. Perhaps you would alter activity in this area with certain drugs or brain manipulation techniques in order to regulate how disgusted a person felt from their actions. The intensity of other negative feelings like fear also might be lessened in severity. Beta blockers have shown promise in weakening the experience of bothersome traumatic fearful memories for instance. Maybe they could adjust activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in order to blunt feelings of pain as well. I think even minor alterations in soldiers brain functioning can be problematic from an ethical standpoint. It could be used by the government to make soldiers more likely to stay in the military or follow orders.

Brain technology has other applications to national security issues. Researchers have shown interest in using TMS/tDCS for detecting and altering deceptive behavior. Will these new tools allow a person to cooperate more with authorities? Perhaps they could be used to make a prisoner more likely to tell the truth. As these devices become more refined, it may become easier to alter a person's behavior in a specific way. Ultrasonic neuromodulation might potentially be used to change activity in reward related brain regions for positive reinforcement. There is also the possibility of using these methods to non-invasively modulate areas of the mind associated with pain for torture. I think we will have to have robust defenses against these sorts of abuses by people in authority.

Deaths from conflict have been on the decline over the past 50 years. So I'm somewhat optimistic that new tools will be beneficial for humanity as opposed to making things worse. Perhaps people in the future will choose to modify their behavior in order to edit out warlike tendencies. These technologies should theoretically enable people to enhance feelings of being one and at peace with others. Humanity may eventually change their temperament to such a radical extent that almost no conflicts will occur. This would be an extreme shift in how the world operates. Regardless of what actually happens, there are many interesting issues with regards to neurotechnology that our society may increasingly have to grapple with as time goes forward.

See Mind Research Network Sponsors Lecture on Neurosystems for National Security.

Neuromorphic Electronics

I previously mentioned about the synapse program which is DARPA's attempt at creating a neuromorphic brain. A neuromorphic brain is basically a computer chip that is designed to replicate the functioning of a real brain. According to the wired defense blog they want to make it at a cats level of intelligence. The government wants to replicate a cat's cortex in a chip.

The follow-on phases of the project will create a technology that functions like the brain of a cat, which comprises 10^8 neurons and 10^12 synapses,"

Why a cat and not a rat? I have absolutely no clue, but I guess they have to start somewhere. I thought it might be easier to attempt to replicate an insect level of intelligence, but our government is somewhat more ambitious than that. There is no mention of creating a human level intelligence yet, but that would be the next logical progression. It probably won't end up getting that far, though.

You can read more about this new project at this website. (Never mind, The press release has actually been retracted, apparently the deal has not been finalized yet, so the company HRL may not be doing this). The press release is mysteriously dissapearing from every website, so I won't link to it. One could say, though, that the cat is out of the bag. Basically, there really isn't much new info that hasn't already been discussed. What will this actually accomplish? The chip could end up being a million dollar paper weight. Maybe I'm a little pessimistic, but it would be interesting if they got it to act in a similar manner to a real brain.

I'll admit, though, I really don't understand too much about this type of technology. Ray Kurzweil had an interesting comment in his book The Singularity is Near about creating an artificial brain that seemed appropriate (pg 177-178).

Modeling human-brain functionality on a nonlinearity-by-nonlinearity and synapse-by-synapse basis is generally not necessary.

He goes on to say;

Preserving the exact shape of every dendrite and the precise squiggle of every interneuronal connection is generally not necessary. We can understand the principles of operation of extensive regions of the brain by examining their dynamics at the appropriate level of detail.

Basically he is saying that we have (or will soon have) detailed enough maps of the brain to start to replicate it's functioning either in a computer or on a chip. We don't need to perfectly model every receptor protein or atom in a neuron (or even synapse?) to get a decent representation of the brain.

Kurzweil really is quite a creative genius and a very interesting futurist, but he does get a heck of a lot of stuff wrong in his predictions. So I'm not so sure that he is necessarily correct. He does give a pretty good argument, though, that this is possible. However there is a lot we don't know about the brain. For one thing, there is the 3-Dimensional arrangement of neurons in specific brain areas and how those regions interact with each other. The interaction of these regions according to the laws of physics is not fully understood even if you know the firing patterns of the underlying neurons and region activation. It is unclear if you can condense that function down to a presumably smaller (or perhaps larger) chip while retaining the essence of those complex interactions, without also replicating the underlying physics, chemistry or any other "level" inherent to this world. Maybe it is possible to drastically simplify things and still get a working model. However, I still have my doubts that this will be possible.

Neurowarfare Report

A new report about neurowarfare is now available for free online. It looks like it covers some fairly interesting topics that have previously been mentioned in other reports (see neurowarfare). I haven't had a chance to read it yet. The summary for the report can be found in this pdf file. Chapters in the report include neuropsychopharmacology, cognition enhancers and functional neuroimaging. It also looks like it discusses brain-machine interfaces.

Brain–machine Interfaces. This category includes direct brain-machine interfaces for control of hardware and software systems. Traditional human interfacetechnologies, such as visualization, are not considered in this report (Thomas andCook, 2005).

Thanks to Mind Hacks for the tip. (Not sure if the links are still working, sorry if they aren't)

Neuroscience and War

There is an interesting article entitled "Neuroscience, National Security & the "War on Terror" It gives a good overview of the US military and its programs in relation to neuroscience. The tone of the article may be a little negative, but there are a lot interesting links in that post to the various projects that DARPA is undertaking.

Mind-machine interfaces, also called "neural prosthetics." Living robots" whose movements can be controlled via brain implants. Research has successfully been carried out on "roborats" and "robodogs" for mine clearing and other dubious purposes. "Cognitive feedback helmets" that provide commanders or their medical surrogates the ability to remotely view an individual soldiers' mental state. MRI and fMRI technologies for what has been called "brain fingerprinting" as an interrogation tool or airport screening for "terrorists."

I'm not quite so pessimistic myself as this author is about our military. I think a lot of this stuff may find beneficial uses in civilian areas and I tend to think that war in general is on the decline. Brian Wang from the Next Big Future blog recently did an interesting post about our military's attempt at creating super soldiers.

"Projects in pipeline range from drugs that will boost muscles and energy by a factor of 10, akin to steroids…on steroids"

"A major focus is on helping the soldier’s body to better deal with trauma and damage. One such is the “pain vaccines” coming out...."

It's amazing, though, that a lot of this stuff would have been considered science fiction a short while ago, but now this new technology is quickly coming to fruition. This technology could have a large impact on our society and it brings up many issues that we will have to grapple with.

Neurowarfare

The Wired defense blog alerted me to this very interesting paper entitled "Brave New World: Neurowarfare and the Limits of International Humanitarian Law". The article talks about the military's research of weapons that can be controlled through brain-machine connections. In the first part of the paper the author mentions the various legalities of using these type of computer interfaces in international warfare.

"For the past several years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the military research and development agency tasked with maintaining U.S. military technological superiority, has engaged in research on direct neurological control of weapon systems."

Science is making strides towards being able to control specific technology solely by manipulating ones own thought processes.

"Application of this technology to prosthetics has already progressed into human trials. In 2006, a tetraplegic human with a rudimentary microelectrode cortical implant demonstrated the feasibility of this technology by manipulating a simulated computer, a television, and a robotic arm."

The military is keen on developing technology that can integrate man with military hardware. The ability to control military technology will likely become much more precise and intuitive in the future. Pilots of planes or tanks will have their EEG's recorded and the on board computers will be able to sense their inner thoughts. Interestingly, some think that these brain computer interfaces are not the ultimate battle weapon and that artificial intelligence may ultimately render humans obsolete.

"Nevertheless, Licklider believed that “man-machine symbiosis” would not likely prove “the ultimate paradigm for complex technological systems” because advances in artificial intelligence might eventually render humans’ role superfluous in tactical warfare decisions."

The paper mentions that humans have the ability to recognize things faster than computers at this point. However this may change in the future as computers get better at recognizing and classifying images. Software is steadily making improvements in this area, and may eventually surpass humans.

"One of the justifications for employing a brain-machine interface is that the human brain can perform image calculations in parallel and can thus recognize items, such as targets, and classify them in 200 milliseconds, 162 a rate orders of magnitude faster than computers can perform such operations. In fact, the image processing occurs faster than the subject can become conscious of what he or she sees."

In the future, computers may become extremely good at processing video imaging. Artificially intelligent software will be able to analyze images from satellites and be able to pick out suspicious activity. It may eventually get good enough to be able to read people's intentions and tell whether they are hostile or not. This may be especially helpful in situations when it is not clear who the enemy is. Often the enemy blends in with other civilians, so soldiers may not recognize them until it's too late. A sophisticated artificial intelligence would be able to pick up on suspicious behavior that would indicate a hidden enemy combatant. The author talks about brain-interface guided weapons. Basically you could have a computer reading a soldiers brain waves. The machine would then translate those thoughts into firing a weapon at an enemy target. This could be helpful in situations where split second timing was necessary to be able to win on the battlefield.

"In summary, a brain-interface guided weapon could circumvent the pilot’s normal volitional processing signals and rely solely on the recognition activity, thereby making it impossible for courts to determine whether a volitional act occurred before weapon targeting"

Imagine a future where a pilot wears a helmet that can read their EEG (brain waves). The headset might also contain electrodes that can electrically stimulate specific areas of the pilot's brain (using transcranial direct current stimulation). So on board computer sensors on the plane could detect if the pilot was getting sleepy or losing their concentration. Then the headset could send a small electric current to an area of the brain like the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to improve the pilots mood or attention. Researchers have found that stimulating the left lateral occipital cortex with transcranial magnetic stimulation can reduce the effects of sleep deprivation. So a tDCS electrode device inside a helmet might also be able to stimulate the same area and get a similar effect. This type of device could potentially be far superior to the go-pills (amphetamines) that have been used in the past to keep soldiers alert. Amphetamines (and drugs in general) have many negative effects on soldiers, so their use is less than ideal. I think the ultimate technology will seamlessly integrate man with military hardware and allow a "cross-talk" between the human brain and a machine. The military is definitely moving towards these types of brain-machine connections. They may increasingly find use on the battlefield of the future and possibly in civilian areas as well.