Scientists Successfully ‘Hack’ Brain To Obtain Private Data

 Could it possibly be true, or is this just another flashy "junk science" online headline?



Emotiv's Epoc headset


Scientists Successfully ‘Hack’ Brain To Obtain Private Data by Peter V. Milo, CBS Seattle

It sounds like something out of the movie “Johnny Mnemonic,” but scientists have successfully been able to “hack” a brain with a device that’s easily available on the open market.
Researchers from the University of California and University of Oxford in Geneva figured out a way to pluck sensitive information from a person’s head, such as PIN numbers and bank information.

The scientists took an off-the-shelf Emotiv brain-computer interface, a device that costs around $299, which allows users to interact with their computers by thought.

The scientists then sat their subjects in front of a computer screen and showed them images of banks, people, and PIN numbers. They then tracked the readings coming off of the brain, specifically the P300 signal.

The P300 signal is typically given off when a person recognizes something meaningful, such as someone or something they interact with on a regular basis.

Scientists that conducted the experiment found they could reduce the randomness of the images by 15 to 40 percent, giving them a better chance of guessing the correct answer.
Another interesting facet about the experiments is how the P300 signal could be read for lie detection.

In the paper that the scientists released, they state that “the P300 can be used as a discriminative feature in detecting whether or not the relevant information is stored in the subject’s memory.

“For this reason, a GKT based on the P300 has a promising use within interrogation protocols that enable detection of potential criminal details held by the suspect,” the researchers said.

However, scientists say this way of lie detection is “vulnerable to specific countermeasures,” but not as many compared to a traditional lie detector.

This could only be the beginning of a new form of fraud. Scientists say that a person with their guard lowered could be “easily engaged into ‘mind games’ that camouflage the interrogation of the user and make them more cooperative.”

Also, much like other household electronics, “the ever increasing quality of devices, success rates of attacks will likely improve.”

Before I Forget: New Alzheimer's News

As Droopy would drawl, "Gruesome, isn't it?"

by Thomas H. Maugh II Los Angeles Times  July 11, 2012

Researchers have found the first gene mutation that protects against Alzheimer's disease, a finding that supports a now-controversial theory about the cause of the disease and that could eventually lead to the development of new drugs to treat the disorder. The gene mutation also protects against aging, suggesting that the two diseases have mechanisms in common.

Alzheimer's affects an estimated 5.4 million Americans, and the prevalence increases with age:
13% of those older than 65 and 45% of those over the age of 85 have it.

The disease is characterized by the buildup in the brain of particles called amyloid plaque, which are composed of a protein called amyloid beta. Amyloid beta is produced by the breakdown of a larger protein called amyloid precursor protein, or APP. Researchers have so far identified at least two dozen variants of APP that produce early-onset Alzheimer's disease in people younger than 65. The new variant, reported online Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first that protects against Alzheimer's.

The idea that breakdown of APP causes Alzheimer's has led many pharmaceutical companies to search for drugs that could delay Alzheimer's by inhibiting the breakdown. Unfortunately, clinical trials of those drugs have been almost uniformly unsuccessful, leading many critics to doubt the theory. The new findings, however, tend to place it on firmer ground.

A team led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of deCode Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, deciphered the whole genome of 1,795 Icelanders looking for rare variants associated with Alzheimer's and found the new mutation, which is present in about 0.45% of the population there. Unpublished data show that it is even rarer in the United States, found in only about 1 in every 10,000 people. That suggests the mutation arose relatively recently in Northern Europe, Stefansson said.

The data showed that the mutant gene was present in 0.13% of those with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, but in 0.62% of those over 85 who did not have the disease. The variant was also present in 0.79% of those over age 85 whose brain functions were normal. Furthermore, those with the variant performed significantly better in tests of cognitive functioning.

Surprisingly, the variant also seems to protect against other risk factors for the disease. At least 90% of people with two copies of a gene called ApoE4 normally get Alzheimer's by age 80. But Stefansson observed 25 people in the study with the new variant and two ApoE4 genes, and none had Alzheimer's.

Stefansson predicted that pharmaceutical companies will now accelerate their search for new drugs that can somehow mimic the action of the gene variant.

The Emotional Brain by Joseph LeDoux

Where do emotions come from? That's the topic of this in-depth book written by neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux. While not as breezy as the Gladwellian inspired science books of recent years, this is a very thorough look at a complex topic and it details how the research is being done in the lab. I'm a bit more than halfway through it, and I only read a chapter or two at a sitting. This was another one of my "Clearance Section" finds, and it does not disappoint.

"What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive.

One of the principal researchers profiled in Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, LeDoux is a leading authority in the field of neural science. In this provocative book, he explores the brain mechanisms underlying our emotions -- mechanisms that are only now being revealed."

Brain Lock: The Biology of OCD and Its Circular Dance of Doubt/Fear/Rumination

Everyone suffers anxieties, doubts, and fears about uncertainty. They are a natural and necessary part of the very successful survival mechanism “softwired” into the human brain by evolution. But people who ruminate or obsess endlessly are suffering from a biological, brain-based disorder. Excessive worrying, rumination, and OCD were once thought to have been caused by “bad parenting,” perhaps as a “neurosis” due to improper upbringing or conditioning. Not anymore.

With the advent of neuropsychology and brain imaging, a new understanding of the way the brain areas have evolved and how they function, has offered a primarily biological and anatomical explanation for unreasonable, excessive rumination – or “brain lock,” the term coined by OCD expert Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D.

Here’s the basic theory -- OCD involves three regions of the brain’s “circuitry,” and the primary causal factor is located in the area known as the caudate nucleus. Any damage to this area, either by “bad genes,” head injury, or autoimmune attack, can result in OCD. Damage to the other two areas implicated, the cingulate gyrus and the orbital cortex, will not lead to OCD as such.

Brain area #1. The caudate nucleus, metaphorically speaking, is the “automatic transmission” of the brain’s thought process. It is the area of the brain that allows thought to flow smoothly, easily, “naturally.” The person suffering from OCD loses the capacity to automatically filter the flow of thought or “gate” the worries.

In the neurotypical person, the brain moves on after a worrying thought is dealt with, but in OCD the doubts never cease, and the “gating” function of the caudate cannot suppress them. The malfunctioning caudate results in thought “leakage” or a hyperactivity of thought and compulsion.

Brain area #2. The orbital cortex, part of the cerebral cortex, houses the brain’s “error detection circuit.” The caudate nucleus normally modulates the orbital cortex, but a damaged caudate cannot turn off the terrible feeling “that something is wrong,” and so the feelings don’t go away. The feelings are never satisfied. These repeated “error message” feelings remain as fresh, new, and jarring as the very first time they appeared – there is no “leveling off.”

Brain area #3. The final implicated area, the cingulate gyrus, is a part of the emotional system of the brain known as the limbic system. This is the area responsible for the terrible psychic pain of OCD. The disorder is profoundly painful, so painful that sufferers often speak of “being tortured by their own thoughts.” OCD brings with its unsettling, recurring doubts, pain in the form of terror, thanks to the involvement of the cingulate gyrus. Each “error message” from the orbital cortex shoots down to the cingulate gyrus, which cranks up an extreme state of fear, panic, and alarm. For what should be a neutral or mildly worrisome stimulus, the over-amped OCD sufferer feels the overwhelming fear that a neurotypical would experience only from a catastrophic threat. OCD, in its classic form, torments sufferers who are driven against their better judgment, reason, and will to “check” over and over again, even though they absolutely do not want to continue this checking. They have an “objective bystander” part of their mind that knows these actions/reactions are illogical, but due to bad brain biology. they simply cannot stop themselves. They are gripped by terror, and must act now.

The Good News: After years of research, progress in treating the condition has improved greatly. The treatment for the disorder is to break through the “brain lock” with a combination of medication, exposure and response prevention, and by harnessing the healing power of neuroplasticity (or “rewiring the brain”).  Parents are no longer blamed or need feel guilt over the way they raised their kids. Unfortunately, OCD is a chronic condition that must be treated long-term. More on all of that in my future posts.

On Second Thought: Heuristics and Framing

Once again, the pioneering research of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky serves as the foundation for this breezey Malcolm Gladwell-type book, On Second Thought, by Wray Herbert. I never tire of reading about heuristics and Prospect Theory. Check out the subtle visual pun on the cover design.

From the almighty Amazon, "Our lives are composed of millions of choices, ranging from trivial to life-changing and momentous. Luckily, our brains have evolved a number of mental shortcuts, biases, and tricks that allow us to quickly negotiate this endless array of decisions. We don’t want to rationally deliberate every choice we make, and thanks to these cognitive rules of thumb, we don’t need to. 


Yet these hard-wired shortcuts, mental wonders though they may be, can also be perilous. They can distort our thinking in ways that are often invisible to us, leading us to make poor decisions, to be easy targets for manipulators…and they can even cost us our lives. 


The truth is, despite all the buzz about the power of gut-instinct decision-making in recent years, sometimes it’s better to stop and say, “On second thought . . .”


The trick, of course, lies in knowing when to trust that instant response, and when to question it. In On Second Thought, acclaimed science writer Wray Herbert provides the first guide to achieving that balance. Drawing on real-world examples and cutting-edge research, he takes us on a fascinating, wide-ranging journey through our innate cognitive traps and tools, exposing the hidden dangers lurking in familiarity and consistency; the obstacles that keep us from accurately evaluating risk and value; the delusions that make it hard for us to accurately predict the future; the perils of the human yearning for order and simplicity; the ways our fears can color our very perceptions , and much more. 


Along the way, Herbert reveals the often-bizarre cross-connections these shortcuts have secretly ingrained in our brains, answering such questions as why jury decisions may be shaped by our ancient need for cleanliness; what the state of your desk has to do with your political preferences; why loneliness can literally make us shiver; how drawing two dots on a piece of paper can desensitize us to violence, and how the very typeface on this page is affecting your decision about whether or not to buy this book.   


Ultimately, On Second Thought is both a captivating exploration of the workings of the mind and an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to learn how to make smarter, better judgments every day."

Should I Stay or Should I Go?: The Impulse Factor

Thanks to the success of Malcolm Gladwell, there are now scores and scorces of popular psycholgy science books that are fun to read and easy to understand. I'm blazing through this one now. Sometimes I will read two or three of these titles, jumping from one to another if I get bored.

From the ever-popular Amazon, "In his work as research and development director at cutting-edge think tank TalentSmart, Nick Tasler realized that the recent discovery by scientists of a potential-seeking gene could have a remarkable impact on how we understand decision making. Those who have this gene – about one quarter of the population – are endowed with impulsive tendencies that can lead to fast and decisive action or to foolish choices. The cautious majority that Tasler calls risk managers can make carefully considered decisions or become hopelessly lost in the fog of details. Now The Impulse Factor offers a unique online opportunity to analyze their own decision-making style and harness it to improve their everyday lives. With examples from business, psychology, and Tasler’s own research at TalentSmart, the book also vividly illustrates how susceptible we are to the events around us and how our reactions often run contrary to our best interests. By combining his research with real-world examples of extreme decision making, Tasler teaches listeners how to thrive when faced with difficult choices."
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Nueroplascticity: The DVD

This 2010 DVD covers much of the material in the books I recommended  in my earlier post on neuroplasticity.

From its Amazon listing, "Brain Fitness Frontiers explores how ordinary people are utilizing their brain plasticity to create lasting and astonishing changes. From aging to recovery from injury, the frontiers of neuroscience research are proving that our own neuroplasticity holds the key to previously unimaginable and incredible transformations. Hosted by Peter Coyote, Brain Fitness Frontiers takes you into the labs of the scientists and into the lives of those who have been assisted and changed through cognitive training and other therapies on the cutting edge of neuroscientific discovery. Brain Fitness Frontiers contains interviews with luminaries of neuroscience and medicine including Dr. Michael Merzenich, Dr. Skip Rizzo, Dr. John Donoghue, and many more. It challenges our misconceptions about the brain and invites us to embrace new possibilities in our own lives as we witness the struggles, the triumphs, and the transformations made possible through the power of neuroplasticity."

Shadow Syndromes

Shadow Syndromes by John J. Ratey M.D. and Catherine Johnson, Ph.D.

Of Complexity and Tipping Points: Uncertainty and the “Low Seratonin” Model

Continuing on with another entry in my OCD-themed blogging, with reports from Shadow Syndromes, by John Ratey M.D. and Catherine Johnson, Ph.D., I will now share some of their key points about the complex relationship between the brain and medication (also known as drugs).

As the authors put it, “The first point to absorb as we set about attempting to influence the course of our own biology is that the brain is infinitely complex. It is a widely accepted view among neuroscientists that the brain is the most complex system in the known universe. A quart-sized mass of tissue, the brain contains roughly 100 billion neurons, each and every one of those 100 billion neurons possessing an average of 10,000 links to other neurons. For all practical purposes, the brain is infinite.” Cue the awe-inspiring Carl Sagan voiceover.

Sadly, as usual, it seems there is no sure one-stop cure using a pharmacological magic bullet. It turns out, the oft-cited, simple-to-explain explanation of a “low” serotonin/(neourotransmitter of your choice) level is, as I felt all along in my OCD-rattled brain, actually extraordinarily complex, more complex than I, like you, was told. It seems there are unlucky 13 or more different kinds of serotonin receptors found in animals, while it is still unknown how many more serotonin receptors we humans possess. Whatever the number, each and every one of these receptors exists within each synapse and when a “serotonin-raising” medication hits the synapse, each different serotonin receptor is affected in a different way. Some receptors alter electrical transmission in response to the drug, other receptors alter chemical transmission, and so on.

Continuing with this intellectual buzz-kill of the simple solution, “But the real story of serotonin levels isn’t told by even the individual synapses being affected, because each and every synapse is always affected in turn by the neurons lying ‘downstream.’ ‘Downstream’ neurons are neurons lying past the neuron being treated by the SSRI – the neurons being ‘fed into’ by the neuron responding to the drug. The downstream neuron may feedback into the upstream neuron and actually decrease serotonin release – or the downstream neuron’s feedback may increase serotonin release further – we simply do not know, at least yet (written in 1997).”

But wait -- that’s not all -- you also get this further ungainly wrinkle, “Then you have to take the cascade of enzymes that make up the serotonin molecule into account: these enzymes may be influenced by the feedback loop as well, and the enzymes are in turn affected by ever smaller hormones like peptides and the chemistry that guides them, and we have yet to even mention genes and cell functioning.”

In short, the workings of the serotonin system are unknown. The scientists at Eli Lilly, manufacturer of Prozac, simply do not know what Prozac does to the brain downstream. They know what it does in the synapse; they do not know what the cascade of feedback loops and genetic mechanisms this synaptic change sets off.

A cascade effect is set off.  Any treatments of any kind will produce effects unique to each individual. No doctor, no psychiatrist can predict what affect this pill, or this “talking cure,” will have upon this person’s biology. The clinician can only rely on statistical averages: how many patients with this cluster of issues typically respond to a particular treatment? After that it is simply a matter of trying the treatment and seeing what happens. (Perhaps to soften this unsettling new from OCD’s two fellow travelers, Mr. Uncertainty and Mr. Risk, the authors parenthetically add: In fact, the majority of patients who choose to take up medication do end up experiencing very real and significant improvement. At least half, and probability more, of all patients who consult a psychiatrist will find the help they need). Of course that means that nearly half don’t, adds Mr. Glass Half-Empty, glumly.

A discussion of cascades, non-linear phenomena, complexity, the popular Chaos metaphor of “the butterfly effect,” and self-organizing emergence, and ensues. This is enlivened with illustrations from Malcolm Gladwell’s popular Tipping Point book.

So, the disturbing news is that the science behind the drugs is so complex, that like the weather, it is nigh-impossible to get precise, predictable forecasts about will happen when you take any neurotransmitter-enhancing medication. Minuscule changes at one location can percolate through the system so as to bring about major effects somewhere else.

The hopeful news the authors ask us to take away is that it is possible to have a positive “tipping point” as well as a negative one. It’s not a one-way street like entropy. You might be able to “tip” from the serious classic version of a disorder to a shadow syndrome, which while not perfect, will certainly bring about a welcome higher quality of life. As Mr. Gladwell put it, “it is the nature of nonlinear phenomena that sometimes the most modest of changes can bring about enormous effects.”

The authors’ musings on complexity conclude with, “Thus the notion that things might naturally come together – might naturally, inevitably and suddenly cohere; this is something new under the sun. It is such a novel concept that some complexologists believe a fifth fundamental force (in addition to gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak forces that govern the atom) will be discovered to exist in nature. We are looking to tip up; we are hoping to reach that magic moment when life and love ‘self-organize’ into something splendid. That is the hope.”

Ah yes, uncertainty, risk, exposure, and hope – “Welcome back my OCD friends, to the show that never ends.”