Positive Technology Journal

From VRoot.org (via MSNBC)

With Pentagon support, researchers develop thought-controlled limbs. Work on artificial arms that would be controlled by the human mind is ramping up, thanks to a helping financial hand from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA announced in February that it would pour $55 million into a prosthetic arm research project to be led by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. The work will be spread among more than two dozen institutions.

From textually.org 

Electromagnetic radiation from your mobile phone may impair your ability to make snap decisions, such as when driving a car, an Australian study shows, reports Optus.net via Engadget Mobile and Techdirt Wireless.

"The study, which will be published in the journal Neuropsychologia found evidence of slowed reactions, on both simple reactions and more complex reactions, such as choosing a response when there is more than one alternative.

The researchers found these effects after people were exposed to electromagnetic radiation equivalent to spending 30 minutes on the phone."

... Another interesting finding of the study was that the participants showed a slight improvement in working memory, such as remembering a phone number long enough to dial it."

Via VRoot

Mercurynews reports that at least two start-ups have developed technology that monitors a player's brain waves and uses the signals to control the action in games. They hope it will enable game creators to immerse players in imaginary worlds that they can control with their thoughts instead of their hands.

San Jose's NeuroSky has been testing prototypes of its system that uses a sensor-laden headband to monitor brain waves, and then uses the signals to control the interaction in video games. They hope that such games are just the beginning of a mind-machine interface with many different applications.

Read the full story

From Smart Mobs

Neuro-biologist Susan Greenfield asked this interesting question:

From Smart Mobs 

Instant messaging, favored by chatting teens and office gossips, is a growing tool for therapists counseling people on everything from smoking cessation to sexual-abuse trauma, reports the Pioneer Press.

Proponents say the text-based conversations are appealing because they're fast and anonymous — users can log onto a number of online services and connect with therapists who know them only by screen names. But many in the mental-health community say the format is too impersonal for effective treatment and should be only an adjunct to face-to-face counseling.

... Text messaging, critics say, doesn't allow therapists to pick up on important visual cues to a patient's true state of mind.

"What one gleans as a psychiatrist in a clinical assessment is not just from the words one says but from the emotions," says Paul Appelbaum, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University and past president of the American Psychiatric Association. He says doctors need to assess the way a person walks, sits, smiles or tears up.

Toward brain correlates of natural behavior: fMRI during violent video games.

Hum Brain Mapp. 2006 Apr 20;

Authors: Mathiak K, Weber R

Modern video games represent highly advanced virtual reality simulations and often contain virtual violence. In a significant amount of young males, playing video games is a quotidian activity, making it an almost natural behavior. Recordings of brain activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during gameplay may reflect neuronal correlates of real-life behavior. We recorded 13 experienced gamers (18-26 years; average 14 hrs/week playing) while playing a violent first-person shooter game (a violent computer game played in self-perspective) by means of distortion and dephasing reduced fMRI (3 T; single-shot triple-echo echo-planar imaging [EPI]). Content analysis of the video and sound with 100 ms time resolution achieved relevant behavioral variables. These variables explained significant signal variance across large distributed networks. Occurrence of violent scenes revealed significant neuronal correlates in an event-related design. Activation of dorsal and deactivation of rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala characterized the mid-frontal pattern related to virtual violence. Statistics and effect sizes can be considered large at these areas. Optimized imaging strategies allowed for single-subject and for single-trial analysis with good image quality at basal brain structures. We propose that virtual environments can be used to study neuronal processes involved in semi-naturalistic behavior as determined by content analysis. Importantly, the activation pattern reflects brain-environment interactions rather than stimulus responses as observed in classical experimental designs. We relate our findings to the general discussion on social effects of playing first-person shooter games. Hum. Brain Mapping 2006. (c) 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

From Yahoo News:

PENSACOLA, Fla. - In their quest to create the super warrior of the future, some military researchers aren't focusing on organs like muscles or hearts. They're looking at tongues. By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish.

From New Scientist

It sounds like quackery, but it's not. A growing body of evidence suggests that passing a small electric current through your head can have a profound effect on the way your brain works. Called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the technique has already been shown to boost verbal and motor skills and to improve learning and memory in healthy people - making fully-functioning brains work even better. It is also showing promise as a therapy to cure migraine ...

Read the full article 

Via Mind Hacks

The New Atlantis has a comprehensive article on 'neuroelectronics' - the science of interfacing digital components with neural wetware. From the article:

The potential merging of mind and machine thrills, frightens, and intrigues us. For decades, experiments at the border between brains and electronics have led to sensationalistic media coverage, vivid science fiction portrayals, and dreams of cyborgs and bionic men. But recently, this area of science has seen remarkable advances—from robotic limbs controlled directly by brain activity, to brain implants that alter the mood of the depressed, to rats steered by remote control. Adam Keiper explores the peculiar history and present directions of this research, and considers the challenges of staying human in the age of neuroelectronics.

Via Information aesthetics

[pcho.net & pcho.net (avi, 13mb)]

Via The HealthCare IT Guy

Davidson Executive Conference Center 3415 South Figueroa Street :: Los Angeles, California 90089

The Games for Health Project, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, TATRC, and USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Institute for Creative Technologies invite you to join us on May 9 for a full-day event devoted to the use of games and game technologies in health and healthcare, including an evening reception.

This one-day event, just before the opening of the Electronic Entertainment Expo will bring together researchers, game developers, and health & healthcare professionals for a series of talks devoted to how games and game technologies are addressing critical health & healthcare issues.

Talks will focus on:

• Health messaging using games
• Combat & emergency medicine
• Psychotherapy and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Pain Distraction & Anxiety
• Cancer treatment
• Disease management
• Coping with family ailments
• Cognitive health
• Off-the-Shelf consumer health & exergaming titles

Via the Presence Listserv

Japan boasts the most advanced humanoid robots in the world, represented by Honda's Asimo and other bipedal machines. They are expected to eventually pitch in as the workforce shrinks amid the dwindling and aging population. But why build a robot with pigmented silicone skin, smooth gestures and even makeup? To Repliee's creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, the answer is simple: "Android science."

Read the full story from Scientific American

From Cognitive Daily

There is a website that claims to predict with 98 percent accuracy what site visitors would be thinking after a short quiz.
I tried the game and it worked!

Then I looked for other mind-readers, and I found several versions:

Mind-reader version 1

Mind-reader version 2

Mind-reader version 3

Mind-reader version 4

Mind-reader version 5 

Mind-reader version 6

there is even a website that offers different Flash-based customizations of the mind reader

Via Smart Mobs (New Scientist)

New Scientist has an article about a software called MoodViews that tracks mood swings across the 'blogosphere' and pinpoints the events behind them. Moodviews was created by Gilad Mishne and colleagues at Amsterdam University, The Netherlands. At present, MoodViews consists of three components, each offering a different view of global mood levels, the aggregate across all postings of the various moods:

• Moodgrapher tracks the global mood levels,
• Moodteller predicts them, and
• Moodsignals helps in understanding the underlying reasons for mood changes.

From the MoodViews website:

"Check out the impact of global events on global moods. Find out whether it is true that people drink more during the weekend. Observe states-of-mind with a cyclic nature; e.g., people feel energetic in the mornings and relaxed in the evening"