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View Full Version : Brain-Machine Interface Puts Anesthesia on Autopilot



skywizard
1st November 2013, 20:21
http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/057/077/i620/coma.jpg?1379633907


A new brain-machine interface could replace human administration of anesthetics to patients in a medically induced coma.

The machine monitors a patient's brain activity and automatically delivers just the right amount of anesthetic to keep the patient in a coma — thus reducing the amount of anesthetic needed and preventing an overdose, researchers say. Doctors could also use the system to awaken patients periodically from a coma to do neurological assessments.

In a medically induced coma, physicians administer drugs to inactivate a patient's brain, usually to treat high pressure in the skull or uncontrollable epilepsy. Doctors maintain these comas, which often last for several days, by monitoring a patient's electroencephalogram (EEG) brain activity and delivering a precise dose of anesthetic.

Controlling the delivery of the anesthesia by hand is a bit like flying a plane manually for several days, the researchers say. In contrast, the brain-machine interface puts the process on autopilot.

Doctors need to deliver enough anesthetic to maintain a level of burst suppression, a pattern of brain activity involving bursts of electrical signals followed by quietness, in order to achieve a coma state.

A team of researchers from Cornell University, Massachusetts General Hospital and MIT developed the brain-machine interface that controlled burst suppression in rodents. The system, detailed Oct. 31 in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, uses sophisticated algorithms that measure the EEG brain activity, estimate the burst-suppression level and use that information to control the release of anesthetic, in real time.

The machine's developers say it could be adapted for other kinds of anesthesia, too. The system could replace the manual administration of anesthetic in long surgeries and intensive-care units, where patients often must be under anesthesia for days at a time.

However, future studies will have to test the therapeutic benefits of this technology.


Source: http://www.livescience.com/40877-brain-machine-interface-controls-anesthesia-during-coma.html


peace...
skywizard

Sparky
10th November 2013, 06:29
This machine may be more dangerous than anesthesia itself...especially if you are a young person.

Why? Your organs could be harvested if you don't wake up in 18 days and your family would believe they are doing the best thing to help others.

Do your research. Sometimes it takes 4 months to wake up from an induced coma. Where did the grant money come from for Cornell, Mass General and MIT to invent this sucker? If it came from the Rockefeller Foundation, or Institute....THINK

Sooz
10th November 2013, 07:00
I think I remember reading something similar to this in the book 'The DaVinci Code'.

Spiral
10th November 2013, 08:37
This approach seems a bit simplistic, what if the person has a very strong will but a feeble body or vital organs ?

A human anaesthetist would take that into account.....

Calabash
10th November 2013, 09:19
Anything that could reduce the harmful effects of anaesthesia would be welcome - sometimes the anaesthesia is more dangerous than the operation itself. However, interference with the brain carries risks of its own, just by the comments so far and there are bound to be others.

There have been some wonderful results using hypnosis (which also interferes with the brain, it has to be said), and if I had any money to invest it would be into non-invasive surgery.

I couldn't find the clip I was looking for (Chinese woman undergoing open heart surgery under hypnosis) but I did find this, which goes into detail about the anaesthetic used as well as hypnosis.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s5OFD8uTpU