I have a little business that consists of me as a contracting Executive Producer for national PBS programs and series. I'm in the process of changing its name to Hippocampus, an homage to my favorite part of the brain.
Because we log deep memory in the hippocampus [try to remember to explore Brain Tours: The Hippocampus], and because our memories are so fundamental to our sense of identity, it's fascinating to contemplate getting a transplant hippocampus. No doubt the actual science doesn't work this way, but might one get traces of someone else's memories? Would it a transplant start "on empty"? And similar questions leading to a career in science fiction.
"The world's first brain prosthesis--an artificial hippocampus--is [being] tested in California. Unlike devices like cochlear implants, which merely stimulate brain activity, this silicon chip implant will perform the same processes as the damaged part of the brain it is replacing. The prosthesis will first be tested on tissue from rats' brains, and then on live animals. If all goes well, it will then be tested as a way to help people who have suffered brain damage due to stroke, epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease. Any device that mimics the brain clearly raises ethical issues. The brain not only affects memory, but your mood, awareness and consciousness--parts of your fundamental identity...The hippocampus is the most ordered and structured part of the brain, and one of the most studied...The job of the hippocampus appears to be to "encode" experiences so they can be stored as long-term memories elsewhere in the brain...
The inventors of the prosthesis had to overcome three major hurdles. They had to devise a mathematical model of how the hippocampus performs under all possible conditions, build that model into a silicon chip, and then interface the chip with the brain. No one understands how the hippocampus encodes information. So the team simply copied its behavior. Slices of rat hippocampus were stimulated with electrical signals, millions of times over, until they could be sure which electrical input produces a corresponding output. Putting the information from various slices together gave the team a mathematical model of the entire hippocampus...The hippocampus has a similar structure in most mammals...so little will have to be changed to adapt the technology for people. But before human trials begin, the team will have to prove unequivocally that the prosthesis is safe...
It is unclear whether we have any control over what we remember. If we do, would brain implants of the future force some people to remember things they would rather forget? The ethical consequences of that would be serious. 'Forgetting is the most beneficial process we possess'...It enables us to deal with painful situations without actually reliving them."
In my late '50's I've become a virtuoso of forgetting.
[Reported in New Scientist, March, 2003]
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