Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Nicholas Lee on 28/08/2016 20:06:04
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I am currently trying to find a way to build a human memory erasing machine, that uses a modified gamma knife machine, to ionize micron cubic sized groups of neurons in the brain.
It would be tested safely on animals first.
Could this technique be safer to use than Electroconvulsive Therapy, at erasing specific memories from people with PTSD.
With Electoconvulsive Therapy the good memories the person wants to keep gets erased, and the person is left confused after treatment.
The next step in Andre Fenton's work is to erase spatial memories specifically in a mouses brain using a modified gamma knife machine.
The steps to doing this technique is below.
The yet to be built INUMAC MRI machine (for imaging Neuro disease Using high-field MR, And Contrastophores) can image a area of about 0.1mm, or 1000 neurons, and see changes occuring as fast as one-tenth of a second.
It would allow much more precise functional imaging of the brain at work, than is currently available. You cannot really discriminate what is happening in the brain at the level of a few hundred neurons.
With the INUMAC it should be possible to find a bad memory within 1000 neurons with the BOLD signal, where the activity is most active with the BOLD signal in the 1000 neurons is where you test the 10%to 25% theory. You do not need to find EVERY group of neurons in the brain that holds a specific memory.
A single neuron can contain around hundreds, to thousands of synapses.
So in 1000 neurons that is a lot of synapses containing the memories of specific spatial tasks.
So if you ionize cubic areas around 2, to 25 microns, with a modified Gamma Knife, in the the general area of the BOLD signal that houses the 1000 neurons, you CAN get lucky and ionize the specific memory.
Ionizing SOME of the groups of neurons is enough to disrupt a specific memory.
If the bad memory can be associated, and found in a group of 1000 neurons is should possible to ionize those groups of neurons which reside in a cubic are around 2 microns or smaller.
The best way to find a specific memory is to ask the person, to recollect it, and ask him if he remembers it.
It would be a repeated process of asking the person to recollect the bad memory, ionizing the synapses, and neurons, then asking the person if he remembers.
This three step process you would just repeat over, and over again until the bad memory was gone.
I will admit with this technique you are shooting in the dark because you can only see the BOLD signal in 1000 neurons, but it is inevitable you will find, and ionize the bad memory, with the three step repeated process of recollection, ionization, and asking the person if he remembers the memory.
Combine the INUMAC with the latest CT scanners.
With the latest CT scanners, the final picture is far more detailed than an X-ray image.
Inside the CT scanner is a X-ray detector which can see hundreds of different levels of density.
Combine the INUMAC, and latest CT scanners with Magnetoencephalography (MEG), and Electroencephalogram (EEG) to see the electro signals, happening in real Magnetoencephalography, the SERF (spin exchange relaxation free) magnetometer in being investigated for future machines.
This will help increase the accuracy of the electro signal in the brain.
Now you have both BOLD, and electro and chemical signals to deduce what neurons hold which specific spatial memory.
Modify a Gamma Knife machine, currently the ball lenses need to be worked on to ionize micron sized groups of neurons, in cubic areas in the brain.
Remember a gamma wave can pass through something as small as an gamma knife surgery they ionize tumors in the brain the size of a pea, so ionizing a cubic area in the brain of around 20 microns would be way safer than gamma knife surgery.
A gamma wavelength is as small as 10 picometre’s, the width of an atom is 32 picometre’s, so a gamma wavelength is small enough to pass through something as small as an atom.
So a gamma wavelength passes through a pipe with an aperture (hole) that is small enough to collimate the beam, to be around 20, to 15 microns in width.
The collimater adjusts to increase, or reduce the width of the gamma beam.
A single neuron ranges in size from 4, to 100 microns, so a group of 20 neurons should be housed inside a cubic area of around 80 microns, which is the cubic target of neurons I want to ionize.
Some of these diagrams become shifted when looking at them on a smart phone.
A cubic target area of a group of 20 neurons in the brain, 80 microns small, not to scale.
So the beams of Gamma radiation come out of the Cobalt sources holes.
The smaller the holes the more thinly the gamma beams are going to be.
With them being thinner, that means the meet area in the center where all the beams meet is going to be smaller.
Just using two Gamma Knife beams of radiation, on a cubic target in the brain, will make the smallest meet area where the beams come together in the center.
Using more than two Gamma Knife beams, say 20 beams will make a larger cubic target radius area, where all 20 beams come together in the meet area in the center.
Just using two beams of Gamma Knife radiation makes the smallest meet area in the center, rather than using 20 beams.
The Question is are two beams of Gamma Knife radiation around 0.1mm small in width, do the two Gamma Knife beams have enough dose to affect, or eliminate a group of neurons in a cubic area around 0.1mm small, or smaller.
If not could the Cobalt sources be increased in size, and shape to make the gamma beams more intense, to make up for the Gamma Knife beams being thinner?
Because the beams are now thinner in width, than a regular sized Gamma Knife beam, and as small as 0.1mm they are weaker to affect a target.
The whole point of these questions is to see if the meet area in the center, where all the gamma beams come together, can be made smaller.
The smaller the meet area, by making the beams of radiation thinner I think is the key to making the beams meet in an area smaller than 2mm, or 0.1mm which is my goal, this is what I want to achieve.
Where all the beams meet to I want to see if this new Gamma knife can eliminate a group of 20, to 50 neurons, or smaller.
As you add more Gamma Knife beams to the target in the center the area where they all meet in the center gets bigger, the more beams you add to the target the larger the dot gets in the center.
If all the Gamma Knife beams all come together in the center of a target, they cannot help but make a large radius area dot in the center, like in the diagram below, in the center there is a big dot, the more beams you add the bigger this dot gets in the center.
As more, and more Gamma Knife beams are added to the target in the center the dot in the center gets larger, and larger.
Here are some of my ideas below, to modify the Gamma Knife, to make the Gamma Knife beams thinner in width in order to affect, or eliminate a target area of a group of neurons in the brain around 0.1mm small.
Where the beginnings of Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s start.
Build a small metal pipe like this below, that would be in two pieces, and stages of size.
From the left to the right, the second pipe would have the largest aperture funnel shaped hole in the center to let the most of the Gamma Knife beams go through.
Then as the Gamma Knife beams are funneled through the second pipe, the beams then pass into first pipe with an even smaller hole, making the beams even smaller, collimating the beams to around 20 microns in width.
So the Gamma Knife beams get smaller as they go through the pipes.
/////////////////////////
//////////////////This aperture (hole) can be made
/////////////////////////
//////////////////Shorter in length, if it would help in
Cobalt Source./////Protective shielding./////Beam intensity.
A square shaped cobalt source could help with beam intensity, as well as size, of the
Cobalt 60 source. Other elements in the periodic table of elements could make more
Stronger intense gamma beams.
So the Gamma Knife beams are being forced into the first pipe that has the smallest hole, the hole is small enough to collimate the beams to around 20 microns in width which can be adjusted to increase, and decrease the gamma knife beams width.
To help ionize the cubic target, depending how big is.
The Cobalt source could be modified to make stronger Gamma Knife beams, to make up for the Gamma Knife beams being thinner.
Increasing the source could make stronger intensity beams, and the shape of the cobalt source, being square shaped could help with beam intensity.
The hole in the center where the Gamma Knife beams pass through, gets narrower going from left to right like this diagram below.
This pipe can be shortened to help the Gamma Knife beams pass through better.
As the Gamma Knife Beams go through the hole in the third, second stage of the pipe the hole gets narrower, to concentrate all the beams into the smallest first stage pipe with the smallest hole.
Remember the target of a group of neurons would be no further than three inches away from the edge of the first stage pipe aperture.
If this idea cannot work, can this extra modification below to the first 0.1mm pipe, help make the Gamma Knife beams travel through the first pipe better, and make the Gamma Knife beams go completely through the 0.1mm pipe.
As well as Gamma Knife beams passing through the second pipe into the first pipe, with the 0.1mm hole.
Can small Cobalt sources be built into the first pipe with the 0.1mm hole?
The Cobalt sources the Gamma Knife beams come from would be built into the first pipe.
These parts the aperture can be adjusted up, and down to collimate the beam more thinly, or make the beam wider.
The Cobalt source would be built as close to the hole in the center, of the 0.1mm pipe as possible, where the original Gamma Knife beam passes through, to help the beam going through the center have more intensity to ionize the neurons.
These parts the aperture can be adjusted up, and down to collimate the beam more thinly, or make the beam wider.
So the Gamma Knife beams flow from the Cobalt sources built into the first pipe, and the holes from the Cobalt sources are built are narrow as possible to make the beams join up with the original Gamma Knife beam in the center.
So the Gamma Knife beam in the center is being made stronger, by all the other Gamma Knife beams from the small Cobalt sources.
If the Gamma Knife beam in the center is weak, or scatters and the beam cannot get through the 0.1mm pipe the extra Cobalt sources built into the pipe give the Gamma Knife beam more power to get through the 0.1mm hole.
Please note the first metal pipe in the diagram above, is five inches in length, if there is a problem with this pipe being too long in length for the Gamma Knife beams to travel through it could be made smaller in length to around three inches, if this helps the beam pass through better.
Small cobalt source built into the first pipe.
Here is a close up of the Cobalt sources built into the first metal pipe below.
See how the small Cobalt sources send a small beam of Gamma Knife Radiation, (shown by the arrow) through a hole, and the Gamma Knife Beam joins up with the original Gamma Knife beam going through the Center, to make the original Gamma Knife beam Powerful more intense.
We have to build the Cobalt sources, as small as possible,
So we can fit lots of them into the first pipe, as many as possible. The more Cobalt sources there are means more Gamma Knife beams going through, joining up with the original Gamma Knife Beam passing through the center.
So if the Cobalt sources are built as small as possible, that means that we can get lots of Cobalt sources into the first pipe.
So we can get as many Cobalt sources into the first pipe as possible, so that more Gamma Knife beams can join up with the original Gamma Knife beams going through the center of the pipe.
So in the first pipe all the space in the pipe is completely used up, filled with Cobalt sources, the more there are means more Gamma Knife beams going through to join up, with the original Gamma Knife beam going through the center.
So how much would it cost to build and make the modified metal pipe?
Can we work together and build a prototype of this pipe, to help with Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease.
There is still much to discover about how Alzheimer’s disease eats away at the tissue of the brain — and a higher resolution scanner could detect the onset of disease much earlier than currently possible.
Functional imaging, which follows brain activity by watching neuron excitation, could be taken to a whole new level of detail and reveal structural complexities we currently cannot see. Where normal hospital scanners can see down to resolution of about a cubic millimeter (roughly 10,000 neurons per pixel), INUMAC will be able to see roughly ten times more acutely, with a resolution of 0.1 mm, or 1000 neurons, and observe changes inside the living brain occurring at 1/10 of a second. This will be a huge leap forward for brain researchers, allowing them to learn more about how the brain functions.
The way the modified gamma knife machine works is it just uses two to twenty five beams.
But two beams will make the smallest meet are in the center where the gamma waves beams intensity is the strongest to ionize the cells.
The two gamma knife beams are adjusted in width by the collimater, to ionize groups of neurons in cubic sized area in the brain.
Two gamma knife beams are best to use to make a smaller meet area in the center, but more than two beams can be used if it helps better with ionization of a cubic area of a group of neurons.
How long the groups of neurons need to be ionized is also a factor in ionization.
A neuroscientist may say " you need to find very group of neurons associated with a specific memory, and then you would need to ionize every group of neurons associated with that memory to erase that specific memory."
You do not need to find EVERY group of neurons in the brain that holds a specific memory.
Ionizing SOME of the groups of neurons is enough to disrupt a specific memory.
And here is how you do it.
You look for the groups of neurons that hold the bad memory on the INUMAC MRI, and FMRI, CT EEG, and MEG technology.
You find the bad memories, by asking the person to recollect the bad memory.
When you have identified which groups of neurons could hold the bad memories.
You ask the person to recollect the bad memory, as you ionize the neurons associated with the bad memory, you keep asking the person to recollect the bad memory, the more you ionize, the more hazy the bad memory becomes to the person, as you ask him to recollect it.
So gradually the bad memory should be erased, but the point is you did not need to find, and ionize EVERY group of neurons in the brain to erase the bad memory.
Which would be like finding a needle in a forest.
So what you have done here is you have stopped the neurons from communication with each other to make a complete working bad memory to the person.
By ionizing SOME of the neurons you have disrupted the neurons communication process with each other that forms the bad memory to the person.
Is it better the person leaves confused, and things in his mind not making a little sense, or the person being severely depressed with PTSD.
Of all the neurons that hold the bad memory just ionizing less than 10% of the groups of neurons, could be enough to disrupt the communication process between these neurons to successfully erase a memory.
This is a lot more safer than electroconvulsive therapy, it can cause confusion, and memory loss, of either good memories, or memories of important this you should know.
This technique with INUMAC, and FMRI, and a modified gamma knife is more specific, at erasing the bad memories, and leaving the good memories, and memories of things you need to know.
ZIP (Zeta Inhibitory Peptide), and Optogenetics is never going to work in a human.
ZIP (Zeta Inhibitory Peptide) would almost wipe a persons memory out.
In Gamma Knife surgery they ionize a area in the brain the size of a pea, I want to ionize a cubic area a few microns in size, so this would be way less dangerous than gamma knife surgery.
Also gamma waves may not need to be used, X-rays could be used to ionize the groups of neurons, which would be more safer.
Safety is the most important priority in this idea.
This idea to erase specific memories, is a option that is a safer, more specific technique better than electroconvulsive therapy.
Stanford scientists have demonstrated a technique for observing hundreds of neurons firing in the brain of a live mouse, in real time, and have linked that activity to long-term information storage. The unprecedented work could provide a useful tool for studying new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
The researchers first used a gene therapy approach to cause the mouse's neurons to express a green fluorescent protein that was engineered to be sensitive to the presence of calcium ions. When a neuron fires, the cell naturally floods with calcium ions. Calcium stimulates the protein, causing the entire cell to fluoresce bright green.
A tiny microscope implanted just above the mouse's hippocampus – a part of the brain that is critical for spatial and episodic memory – captures the light of roughly 700 neurons.
The microscope is connected to a camera chip, which sends a digital version of the image to a computer screen.
The computer then displays near real-time video of the mouse's brain activity as a mouse runs around a small enclosure, which the researchers call an arena.
The neuronal firings look like tiny green fireworks, randomly bursting against a black background, but the scientists have deciphered clear patterns in the chaos.
"We can literally figure out where the mouse is in the arena by looking at these lights," said Mark Schnizer, an associate professor of biology and of applied physics.
When a mouse is scratching at the wall in a certain area of the arena, a specific neuron will fire and flash green. When the mouse scampers to a different area, the light from the first neuron fades and a new cell sparks up.
"The hippocampus is very sensitive to where the animal is in its environment, and different cells respond to different parts of the arena," Schnitzer said. "Imagine walking around your office. Some of the neurons in your hippocampus light up when you're near your desk, and others fire when you're near your chair. This is how your brain makes a representative map of a space."
The group has found that a mouse's neurons fire in the same patterns even when a month has passed between experiments. "The ability to come back and observe the same cells is very important for studying progressive brain diseases," Schnitzer said.
For example, if a particular neuron in a test mouse stops functioning, as a result of normal neuronal death or a neurodegenerative disease, researchers could apply an experimental therapeutic agent and then expose the mouse to the same stimuli to see if the neuron's function returns.
Although the technology can't be used on humans, mouse models are a common starting point for new therapies for human neurodegenerative diseases, and Schnitzer believes the system could be a very useful tool in evaluating pre-clinical
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"Have I built the worlds first human memory erasing machine?"
No.
For a start you have not built anything for a finish, as far as I can tell you have not learned about scattering of gamma rays. Collimating beams isn't as easy as you seem to think.
For an encore you don't seem to have taken account of the damage done by the beam before it reaches the target.
I think you are suggesting that if you use many beams than only the part of the brain at the point where all the beams line up will get the maximum dose.
That's true but each time you add another beam you add more damaged tissue because the beam has to go through the brain to get to the intersection point.
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Once you have located the target volume you wish to destroy how do you keep the brain still while you blast it ?
The assumption seems to have been made that the storage of one memory is stored in just one location this seems very unlikely to me to take the similar case of a computer if you accidentally load a rogue program it can be very difficult to remove it completely as little bits and pieces of it are stored all over the place often with numerous copies I have an uninstalling program that hunts for remnants and often finds hundreds !
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The definitions of "good" and "bad" memories are highly subjective!!!
For example when I'm recalling about my ex-girlfriend, i can remember a lot of different memories, which are neither good or bad. They represent my whole knowledge about this person.
So if you ionize cubic areas around 2, to 25 microns, with a modified Gamma Knife, in the the general area of the BOLD signal that houses the 1000 neurons, you CAN get lucky and ionize the specific memory.
Citation needed.
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Its Good to Know that Someone have done this.