7th EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2006
Genes, brain/mind and behaviour
The Ship Who Sang: the neuromachine interface
Dr Jackie Leach Scully
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle
University, United Kingdom
Helva, the ship who sang
“She was born a thing and
as such would be
condemned if she failed to
pass the encephalograph
test required of all newborn
babies. There was always
the possibility that though
the limbs were twisted, the
mind was not…”
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Helva’s path from human to ship
•
•
•
“…to become an encapsulated brain, a guiding
mechanism that would live in a metal shell for
several centuries.”
“…instead of kicking feet, Helva’s neural
responses started her wheels; instead of
grabbing with hands, she manipulated
mechanical extensions.”
“When she woke, she was the ship.”
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Neuro-machine interfaces: clinical
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Cardiovascular pacemakers
Spinal cord stimulation (chronic pain)
Vagus nerve or deep brain stimulation
(epilepsy, drug-resistant severe
depression)
Cochlear, auditory brainstem implants
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Cochlear implant
Microphone in postaural
hearing aid
Sound processor worn
externally converts to
digital information and
transmits via headpiece to
implant
Implant converts digital
information to electronic
signals, sends to electrode
array in inner ear
Electrode array transfers
signal to auditory nerve
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Neuro-machine interfaces:
experimental
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Cortical and ocular implants
Artificial hippocampus
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Artificial hippocampus
Berger et al, 2003
In vitro
Based on
mathematical
model of functional
hippocampus
Aim to treat
memory loss from
hippocampal
damage due to
stroke, epilepsy or
Alzheimer’s
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Neuro-machine interfaces:
experimental
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Cortical and ocular implants
Artificial hippocampus
Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to
control external device, motor
stimulation of limbs
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Brain-computer interface in
tetraplegic patient
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Microelectrode array
100 microelectrode
array developed by
Cyberkinetics Inc for
use in BrainGate™
Neural Interface
System
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Ethical questions
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Cost to individual, healthcare services
Fair access (also global?)
Informed consent
Safety
 short and long term side effects
 reversibility
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Ethical questions
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Therapy/enhancement
Alteration of identity/personality/free
will?
alteration of experience of human
body
ontological consequences
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Manipulating form and function
If body lacks particular function:
 Provide extrinsic device
 Hearing
aids, prosthetic limbs
 Exploit natural plasticity
 Sign
languages, use of dysplasic limbs
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Alison Lapper, artist
About once a week, a group of us
would be taken to be kitted out with
artificial arms and legs. It was all very
admirable but the final results were
ridiculous. It was virtually impossible
to use them. During a typical mealtime
[you might see] some of us chasing
the same bit of food round and round
the plate without ever getting hold of
it; others succeeding in grabbing a
piece of something but then whacking
themselves in the chin or eye...By the
time I was 7 or 8, the authorities had
accepted that the experiment wasn‘t
working and gave up asking us to use
artificial arms. Instead a knife and
spoon were strapped directly to my
stumps.“
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Corporeal schema and objects
“If I am in the habit of driving a car, I
enter a narrow opening and see that
I can‘t get through, without
comparing the width of the opening
with that of the wings,just as I go
through a doorway without checking
the width...against my body. The car
has ceased to be an object...”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 1962:
165-166
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Corporeal schema and objects
“The blind man‘s stick has ceased to be an object for
him, and is no longer perceived for itself; its point
has become an area of sensitivity, extending the
scope and active radius of touch, and providing a
parallel to sight. In the exploration of things, the
length of the stick does not enter expressly as a
middle term: the blind man is, rather, aware of it
through the position of objects than of the position
of objects through it...To get used to a stick, is to be
transplanted into it, or conversely, to incorporate it
into the bulk of our own bodies.”
Phenomenology of Perception, 1962: 165-166
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Thinking body/embodied mind
 Phenomenology
 Body and its actions as basis of human thought
 Thinking body exists prior to language,
representation, self consciousness
 Cognitive science/neuropsychology
 Reality shaped by patterns of bodily movement,
spatial/temporal orientation, interactions with
objects
 Body experience  development of abstract
thought
 ?Different body experiences  different
modes of thought?
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Cyborg/fyborg

Haraway’s essay now struck me
as a straightforward description
of my life. I experienced joint
kinship with machines and
animals, feeling oddly
affectionate towards my robot
vacuum cleaner…The computer
invaded the sacred domain of
my body, yet to my own
astonishment we learned to
work together as a total system,
mutually changing each other in
the process…I altered its
software; it repatterned the
dendrites in my auditory cortex.
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