By: Bob McGrath
Progressive Thoughts on
the Auditory Nervous System
Nina Kraus gave a lecture to my
neuroscience seminar class at Loyola University in November about the
neurological benefits of playing music particularly with respect to
neural-synchronicity. She presented an interesting example where the
brain waves recorded with an auditory input resembled, very
obviously, the audio sound wave used for the stimulus. Deep Purple's
smoke on the water was played for a participant, and the resulting
brain waves when converted to an audio file and played back sounded
just like smoke on the water. Brilliant!
I have written before about how
technology is allowing humans to interface with machines. Most of
the research being done has been about Humans transmitting their
thoughts to control a computer, but n some instances the researchers
are attempting to send control from a computer directly to a brain.
Researchers at the university of Washington claim to have created the
first human brain to brain communication. On subject was able to
send command from his nervous system through a computer to another
subject who then responded to the command with a keystroke on the
computer. The finger motion was completely elicited by the computer
command given by the other subjects brain.
This technology in synthesis with the
knowledge that brain waves transcribing auditory information behave
in a predictable way could have fascinating implications. With
further development this technology could do so much. There are
mechanical limits to the ear, and some people hearing is impaired
even beyond those limits. With technology that allows transmission
of computer data straight into the brain we could bypass the ear
entirely. This could work miracles for people with hearing
impairment or even provide for super human hearing. As our grasp of
the brain's workings improve the possibilities become more and more
obviously endless. Who knows? Telepathy could be right around the
corner.
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