Bothe / Samii / Eckmiller Neurobionics

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Substitute Impaired Functions of the Human Nervous System
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4832-9156-7
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 396 Seiten

The goal of neurobionics is to elaborate methods for the repairment and substitution of impaired functions of the human nervous system. This publication contains contributions from internationally recognized scientists exploring the structure of this novel interdisciplinary research field. The structure consists of theoretical sciences (philosophy, mathematics, neuroinformatics, computational neuroscience), basic biological sciences (molecular biology, cell biology, biological network neuroscience, neurophysiology), technical engineering (microelectronics, micromechanics, robotics, microsystems), and clinical neurosciences (neurodiagnostics, neurology, neurosurgery, neurorehabilitation). It is hoped the book indicates that a new kind of partnership across these various disciplines is mandatory if emerging problems in the field are to be solved. It also aims to set the coordinates for an international and interdisciplinary research field dealing with a subject intrinsic to man's mind and its biological carrier which may be partially replaced by artificial means in the future.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bothe, H. -W.

Samii, M.

Eckmiller, R.

Leseproben

NEUROBIONICS - A NOVEL FACULTY BETWEEN ETHICS, NEUROBIOLOGY, COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES

Hans-Werner Bothe and Madjid Samii,     Capital of Hanover, Neurosurgical Clinic, Medical School, Haltenhoffstraße 41, 3000 Hanover 1, Germany

ABSTRACT

Neurosurgery as a medical discipline, responsible for maintaining the health of the biological carrier (=brain) of the human mind, thus hovers between ethics as a philosophical discipline, basic natural science disciplines, such as computational neuroscience, and the clinical application of this knowledge in the case of the patient suffering from illness.Therefore, in respect of the well-being of our brain-mind entity, the faculty “Neurobionics” is to be formed which has set itself the following principal aims:

1. development of tools placed at neurosurgery’s disposal to substitute failed parts of the human brain by artificial carriers of information-processing

2. international and interdisciplinary cooperation to achieve aim 1

3. the integration of humanities, such as philosophy, in the field of natural sciences and a prior ethical evaluation of prospective projects

4. the orientation of all parts of the faculty towards the medical aim of helping patients with diseases of the central nervous system

“Neurobionics” has to constitute itself from different disciplines. Among them are ethics, epistemology, fractal geometry, molecular biology, molecular electronic devices, computational neuroscience, neuroinformatics, hardware engineering, software engineering, robotics, behavioural science and neurosurgery. The logical connection of the various branches and their collaboration in respect of the project’s aims is conceptualized in the following introduction to “Neurobionics”.

1 SCIENTIFIC PREMISSES

The idea of establishing “Neurobionics”, a faculty in the service of the human brain and mind, based on international and interdisciplinary cooperation, did not evolve by chance but was the logical consequence of the cultural history and scientific development of mankind. By the end of the 20th century, this development has produced a large number of “neurosciences” which have accumulated immense knowledge. On the threshold of the 21st century and with the future in mind, these independent bodies of knowledge need to be brought together in the proposed discipline as in a burning glass for curing the brain-mind phenomenon of our existence.

1.1 Brief overview of the history of epistemology

The cultural beginnings of Western European civilisation and technology can be found 2500 years ago in the age of classical Hellenism. At that time, the conceptual distinction between body and mind had already been made. The mind has since then been contrasted to the physical world and is, as a subject, due to its cognitive faculty, able to adapt this world to its own structure, i.e. to objectify it. The method of quantification is, in this regard, the crucial aid for the adaptation of the external world to the perceiving subject.

Philosophy has attempted to find here the cognitive organ of the human mind, for purposes of consistent application to the physical world, by its subdisciplines responsible for this problem: epistemology and, later, scientific theory. In doing so, philosophers were constantly in close dialogue with natural scientists and were indeed themselves often acknowledged authorities in the empirical sciences of their time. A temporary high point in philosophical epistemology was reached with Kant who sought to establish the “conditions of possibility” of what is today classically called physics. He described the cognitive organ used by the human mind (which naturally consists of a number of parts, only one of which is the cognitive faculty) to objectify the material world in a way which is still applied today in the majority of sciences. Discursive, reductionist or even sequential thought is based on the premise that the processes of the world are deterministic and linear and therefore predictable. The reductionist cognitive organ consists of the concepts of “space” and “time”, of the logical categories and rules of association and the apparatus of conceptualisation best described by the metamathematical expression of “symbolic representation”.

Reductionist thought first reached the bounds of predictability in the early part of the 20th century with the development of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The hitherto fixed relationship between the concepts of “space” and “time” as a means of empirical research vacillated and certain phenomena could only be conceptualised via stochastic, i.e. indeterministic, auxiliary structures.

The aspect of unpredictability has in the meantime come to light in many areas of the empirical sciences: meteorology, cell biology, economics, linguistics, astronomy and neuroinformatics. The part of the world which can be comprehended with the classical cognitive organ seems to be increasingly limited: whole areas appear to be of a non-linear and indeterministic nature.

The phenomenon of no longer being able to study our world with the conventional media of our cognitive apparatus is more apparent than ever at the end of the 20th century and, at the same time, classic in the philosophical sense. For 2500 years, only one part of the discipline of philosophy, the theory of knowledge and science (epistemology), was concerned with the cognitive faculty. Since the middle of this century, however, numerous empirical neurosciences have arisen which have set themselves more or less the same research aim as had previously epistemology. These however come up against the same limits as those mentioned above with regard to the reductionist method: the non-predictability of the information-processing mechanisms of neuronal structures.

As humans, we have no other resource than this cognitive apparatus, as described above, to obtain knowledge about the physical world. However, the neurosciences now open up the possibility of electronically copying naturally occurring neuronal networks, with regard to the structure of their nodes and their connections with each other. The knowledge acquired by the application of reductionist principles to the nerve cells can be applied artificially with the aid of software to neuro-microprocessors. After the manufacture of a hardware simulation and software programming of the nodes forming a network, the function of such networks, once they had been brought into operation, was found to be no longer predictable on the basis of reductionist theory. Nonetheless, for the first time, we have an empirical, experimental model available for the formulation of epistemological questions, with the possibility of studying problems of the following kind: to what extent can our reductionist, deterministic cognitive method affect a non-linear, indeterministic system? If the principles of fractal geometry - iteration, regeneration and self-similarity - are applied to the aforesaid experimental situation of neuronal networks and the classical cognitive faculty, we can hope that additional possibilities for the acquisition of knowledge will be opened to the human mind in the future: the capacity of controlling the non-linear world by linear knowledge about how non-linear phenomena can be influenced by linear phenomena. The experimental production of neuronal networks could thus bring about a scientific change in paradigm as defined by Kuhn (13).

1.2 Progress of neurosurgery and neuroprosthetics research

Standing, as it does, at the interface between ethics, natural science and technology, medicine has the role of integrating the results of research by these individual disciplines and making them useable for the well-being of its patients.

Neurosurgery, as a specialist medical area, is concerned with the central nervous system and, in particular, with the brain. This is the biological medium of intellectual capabilities. In the course of his daily work, the neurosurgeon affects, by his medically justified interventions in the brain, the innermost core of human existence, namely the mind. For this reason, he must not only bring to bear the fundamental principles of natural science with regard to the brain but also knowledge about the human mind and its function.

In the past 20 years, neurosurgery has been able to achieve significant progress in the treatment of its patients. The most notable successes in this regard have been achieved by the introduction of diagnostic imaging procedures (computerized and nuclear magnetic resonance tomography) and by the use of microsurgical procedures during operations. Nonetheless, many problems in the treatment of patients with brain diseases are unresolved. For example, the central nervous system of the adult human is only able to replace destroyed areas of tissue to a very limited extent in terms of function. This is due to the inability of a nerve cell to subdivide further after completion of the embryonic phase, as do the cells in the remaining organs of the body. Thus, neuronal cell groups destroyed due to illness or accident often lead to permanent functional disabilities. Today,...