Full-Dive Technology Idea

"3dvrmonster" wrote:
Great post cerebral. I rather enjoy your informative posts.

thanks, optogenetics seems to have really big potential judged from the vast amount of data one can find on
the web and youtube.
I am right now buzzing around the web for optogenetic probing or sensing. Exciting and inhibiting neurons seems to be very advanced as far as i have read. FOr VR input (sensory) and muscle inhibting great, but what about motoric nerve output?
Luckily nature offers a bunch of proteins :lol: one could use....

Optogenetic sensors of neuronal activity

All-optogenetic circuit mapping also demands genetically encoded sensors whose optical properties change in response to neuronal activity. Such optogenetic sensors must be capable of reliably detecting the subthreshold changes in membrane potential that typically occur in postsynaptic neurons in response to activation of presynaptic inputs, as well as the larger swings in membrane potential associated with postsynaptic action potentials. To date, no optogenetic sensor completely fulfills these requirements. However, there have been advances in the development and refinement of several different types of optogenetic sensors that promise the ability to image postsynaptic activity. We will highlight these here, acknowledging the omission of other promising approaches, such as optogenetic imaging of synaptic vesicle exocytosis

http://ep.physoc.org/content/96/1/26.full

Optogenetic actuators of neuronal activity

Several microbial opsins, such as channelrhodopsins, halorhodopsin and archaerhodopsins, have recently been established as high-performance optogenetic actuators. Remarkably, expressing these proteins in neurons allows light to either activate or silence neuronal action potential firing. All of these proteins can be genetically targeted to specific populations of neurons and provide a high degree of spatial and temporal control over neuronal activity via light. Thus, these molecules enable exquisitely specific optogenetic control over potential presynaptic neurons.

http://openoptogeneticsblog.org/?p=608

Ever heard of sleep paralysis, instead of genetically engineering people and injecting them with drugs just to stop them flailing about like Palmer Luckey. It would be better to find the sleep paralysis switch in the brain while your in the business of stimulating nerves already. Or when one mucle is activated you could stimulate the opposing muscle so you get the exercise without the movement.

Nerve endings are wires and all wires can be aerials, if the electric signals can be detected remotely they can be stimulated remotely. IF using PCELL interference patterns of the right frequencies you can do that accurately enough to stimulate and read individual nerve fibers then you can also trace the signals coming down the spinal cord to which patches of skin or muscles. Its then a simple map of which nerve connect to witch muscle or texel on your virtual avatar. You could also do the same with the nerves in your optic cord and trace the signals to the position on the retina and expose the eye to different colors to find out which colors they react to. Smell might be a bit more tricky and hearing can be done with conventional earphones except for the fact that you would also want control over the vestibular system.

It would need some hard wired security features to make sure hackers cant take control of your nerves or brain, perhaps nefarious people could hide them in chairs to get people completely by surprise.

I would buy one assuming its not a fortune, but I would not undergo invasive medical procedures for VRs sake.

Opto-genetics is called "genetics" because it requires permanently mutating your cells (this is called gene therapy).

You brain cells are not normally super sensitive to light. But after genetic mutation (which is not a "clean process") they respond to relatively low power visible light.

Guess what happens when they perform the mutation...it often induces cancer! Don't you wonder why this hasn't been performed on humans?

I hate to ruin the party but there are other ways of pursuing "full-dive" that can actually work, and I hate to see people waste their time in this direction.

"jks11" wrote:
Opto-genetics is called "genetics" because it requires permanently mutating your cells (this is called gene therapy).

You brain cells are not normally super sensitive to light. But after genetic mutation (which is not a "clean process") they respond to relatively low power visible light.

Guess what happens when they perform the mutation...it often induces cancer! Don't you wonder why this hasn't been performed on humans?

I hate to ruin the party but there are other ways of pursuing "full-dive" that can actually work, and I hate to see people waste their time in this direction.

which other ways to achieve full-dive are you referring to ?

really good posts, cerebral!

I think a similar idea kike the one op presented has been in a lot of minds in one way or another. and the famous holodeck is still the future end goal, isn't it?

the question is in what way we can transcend our virtual experiences beyond the visual and include other senses.

are there any really promising candidates out there, that are being researched right now?

i personally think that there is a variety of promising projects in connected fields going on right now. there are quite few projects regarding artificial brains and intelligence. the ibm blue brain project would be one. understanding the language of our brain is the first step in artificially inducing these signals.

nanotechnology has a lot of promise in the not so distant future, including super small cpus that could be sewed in to clothing or even swallowed with a pill.

there are huge advances in medicinal technologies coming, especially when it comes to neurology.

another very important point, that is not mentioned too often, is the fact of accelerated growth. ray kurzweil has talked a lot about this. it basically means that our technological evolution is going faster and faster. it took hundreds of years for technologies like the printing press to reach the world, decades for the telephone or the tv. look at the internet today, or the smart phones, how quickly have these spread around the world.

i havent even really thought about vr anymore two years ago, and look where we are now!

i firmly believe that we will be capable of things in about 10 years that seem like science fiction right now.

in the end, time will tell.

i personally believe that we will be able to artificially create nerve impulses that our brain than interpretes like real ones. as soon as we understand what exactly happens in the brain when we touch a wall or a tree or skin, then we are on the road to simulating it.

judging by the speed things are moving along right now, i would say it could happen sooner rather than later. but 5 years is probably too optimistic.

sorry for the long post

I have been a forum lurker here for the past year and a half, that said I feel I should comment on this.

-The idea of stopping signals to your body from your brain, someone else mentions the possibility of stopping vital organs accidentally.

I will not claim to be an expert in the field, but I would venture to guess that it would be se safer accomplished if instead of focusing on the brain or neck- we focus on the limbs. Concept being some form of collar fitted around the shoulders and thighs to read our nerve signals (the information must travel there, right? Im not crazy to assume this.)

"PixelTheory" wrote:
I have been a forum lurker here for the past year and a half, that said I feel I should comment on this.

-The idea of stopping signals to your body from your brain, someone else mentions the possibility of stopping vital organs accidentally.

I will not claim to be an expert in the field, but I would venture to guess that it would be se safer accomplished if instead of focusing on the brain or neck- we focus on the limbs. Concept being some form of collar fitted around the shoulders and thighs to read our nerve signals (the information must travel there, right? Im not crazy to assume this.)

this will be propbably the first step for the decade counting from today.
I think it wont be as a big question of if it is technically feasible but more of if people have the courage to be the
first guinea pig.
Also it will depend on the approval of surgeons and scientists. Kevin Warwick for example told that he had
to do quiet some convincing for that the surgeons would implant the peripheral nerve interface into his median nerve.
It will need some crazy open minded VR pioneers. :D
Finally in the end it will also strongly depend on the money scientists could receive for this research.
Although the final outcome of a nervegear would make money almost obsolete. :lol:
Probably thats why people are a bit mistrustful towards that idea.
By the way, i was in spain for two weeks for vacations. If a future VR nervegear could deliver that kind of experience.....Mammamia!!!

"mrmonkeybat" wrote:
Nerve endings are wires and all wires can be aerials

I just have to point out that this is not the case. The way nerves conduct electrical impulses (via chemical pathways) is very different to how wires do so.

Axons are responsible for the transmission of information between different points of the nervous system and their function is analogous to the wires that connect different points in an electric circuit. However, this analogy cannot be pushed very far. In an electrical circuit the wire maintains both ends at the same electrical potential when it is a perfect conductor or it allows the passage of an electron current when it has electrical resistance. As we will see in these lectures, the axon, as it is part of a cell, separates its internal medium from the external medium with the plasma membrane and the signal conducted along the axon is a transient potential difference(1) that appears across this membrane. This potential difference, or membrane potential, is the result of ionic gradients due to ionic concentration differences across the membrane and it is modified by ionic flow that produces ionic currents perpendicular to the membrane. These ionic currents give rise in turn to longitudinal currents closing local ionic current circuits that allow the regeneration of the membrane potential changes in a different region of the axon. This process is a true propagation instead of the conduction phenomenon occurring in wires.

http://nerve.bsd.uchicago.edu/med98a.htm

The two are often thought to be more similar than they really are which is why you have some people who believe they suffer from 'electromagnetic hypersensitivity' (the belief that they can detect and are affected by nearby electricity and radio transmissions) even though testing shows in reality they cannot tell when such electromagnetic fields are on or off (and is believed to more likely be a manifestation of other psychological disorders).

We are far behind where certain articles (and stories) would have us believe when it comes to replicating human thought, AI, neural processing, nerve replacement/stimulation etc. Amazing progress has been made with prosthetics but this is orders of magnitude different in complexity to intercepting/interpreting thought or direct VR-type perception pathways.

retinas code for monkeys(=humans) decoded and putting opto genes into eye nerve....
Well at least after all neural diseases have been cured we are getting to a full nerve gear,.,,




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcrXOhdLvw