Medical News

Jonathan Moreno writes another insightful piece, Intelligence on the Brain which discusses the need for a new dialogue on neuroresearch and national security.

O, The Oprah Magazine, has an article written by Tim Jarvis in the mindwise section this month titled, The Brain Age. The article explores how "cutting-edge neuroscience has escaped from the lab and is suddenly showing up everywhere, changing the way we practice law, go shopping and possibly, fall in love. Tim interviewed me extensively for the article over a year ago and it's nice to see it finally his the newstand in the November issue. In a side bar, Tim asked me to forecast some neuroscientific advancements that would ring with O readers, here are a few I posit:

Neuroentertainment: Current technologies such as video games will merge with future one (such as those involving neural feedback) so gamers might wear EEG-type caps that read their brainwaves and pick up their emotions. Conceivably, story lines would move forward in real time, the plot changing based on each person's response, says Zack Lynch.

Neuroeducation: The more we learn about the neurobiology of learning - how the mind develops, what to make of differences between individual brains - the better we can "sculpt" teaching methods. Lynch predicts educational software will be tailored to students' individual brain patterns to improve math and language acquisition as well as creative thinking.

Neurospirituality: New tools such as real-time FMRI technology, Lynch says, promise to accelerate our capacity to access deeply meditative and spiritual states.

Check out the article as it scans several areas of the neurosociety.

Where do I start? It's been an amazing journey, but the book I've been working on for the past eight years is finally off the type setter at St. Martin's Press. Moreover, this morning I sent the manuscript off to my publisher in Japan. So if you have been wondering why the blog posting has been so slow the past couple of months, or more like over the past year, this is why. I've been heads down in the future. I'm looking forward to announcing the title of the book a little bit further down, but let me just say, it's pretty cool. Of course, I'm biased, so you'll have to let me know once it hits the book stores, which right now looks like June 2009. I know, an infinite amount of time.

Back in March of 2003, I blogged here about neurowarfare and how the latest national intelligence reports were completely missing the boat on neurowar.

It took a few years, but after Jonathan Moreno wrote Mind Wars, the US defense community woke up and put together a committee, lead by Moreno. Last year I had the opportunity to speak on the current and future state of neurotechnology with the National Research Council committee convened by the Department of Defense who were focused on Military and Intelligence Methodology for Emergent Neurophysiological and Cognitive/Neural Science Research in the Next Two Decades.

The committee's report, "Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies," was released yesterday, highlighting some emerging possibilities including pharmacological landmines, lie detection, mind reading, cognitive enhancement and more. In my forthcoming book, Neurosociety, which is being published by St. Martin's Press in late spring 2009, I cover many of these ideas and more. Until then, I recommend reading the report.