- Natalie Banacos

The parting words of Ken Jennings in last year’s Jeopardy match against Watson, a computer seemingly able to decipher and process language, are a milestone for robotic innovations. Advancements in neuroscience and robotics have focused on giving robots human-like intelligence and processing skills. This concept has been depicted numerous times in popular culture, many times in terms of robotic rebellion, for example in movies such as I, Robot or WALL-E.

Recent robotics research leaves us with a couple of questions. Are really focusing on the right aspects of advancing in robotic technologies? Instead of perfecting intelligence and processing, why not instead focus on perfecting human emotion?

Facial cues have proven extremely important for social interaction. In experiments where robots greeted humans and asked them to perform a task, the humans were more receptive when the robot glanced at the task to be performed, rather than robotically (pun intended) looking at the human subject while giving instructions. A similar experiment was set up in which human subjects were to learn about China. A map of China was present in the classroom. Those who had robot teachers who looked at the map while teaching actually learned more about the spatial relationships pertaining to the “lecture material” than those who had robot teachers who never looked at the map.

Another study examined the responsiveness of infants to robot facial cues.

Child following robot gaze

An 18-month old infant was allowed to watch a robot interact with a human (the researcher). He would point tobody parts, and the robot would repeat the action. When the researcher left the room, the infant followed the robot’s gaze. In contrast, those infants who never saw the robot interact with a human were unresponsive to their gazes. Visual communications are key for learning social interactions.

Such robots have also been used in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) therapies. ASD patients have trouble with social interactions, so these social robots have been hypothesized to help in therapy. A bubble test, in which a companion to the patient blows bubbles, is used as it has been shown to provoke social interaction. ASD subjects were either allowed to interact with the robot to receive bubbles (such as by pushing a button) as well as a motor output from the robot (spinning) or could sit and watch while the robot did nothing. Those patients who were allowed to interact with the robot showed a significant increase in social behaviors such as speech and continued robot interaction. Thus, it has been concluded that the robots’ social behaviors are causing a response in ASD patients.

This work shows that robots are gaining prevalence in studying the social aspects of human intelligence. While it is still important to use robotics to study how human processing works, it will be of extreme value to also continue research in the field of emotions and social communication.

Developing Robots That Can Teach Humans – Science Nation

“Social” robots are psychological agents for infants:: A test of gaze following – Neural Networks

Toward Socially Assistive Robotics for Augmenting Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder – Experimental Robotics

Ayahuasca is found to produce life-changing visions but can it also produce life-changing cures?

“As I closed my eyes, images – if they can be called such – began racing at an ever-increasing speed before me. Swirls of colors, shapes, forms, textures and sounds simply overpowered me to the point where I became immobile. Like many others before me, no doubt, I became somewhat frightened. What had I let myself in for? When I opened my eyes, the phantasmagoria of forms vanished, and I saw myself in the same room with the others”

Donald M. Topping’s description is very similar to the accounts many others have given. He brought up many questions on the vividness of visions produced after his very first ingestion of the hallucinogenic brew Ayahausca.  What underlying brain mechanisms allow potentially healing, uplifting and fearful experiences to occur behind closed eyelids?  That is what Draulio B. de Araujo and others sought out to find.

Ayahausca is a thick, brown potion served orally as a tea decoction made of a bush (Psychotria viridis), which is a rich source of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and a liana (Banisteriopsis caapi) containing beta-carbolines (such as harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine).  The mixture of these two plants allows for the inhibition, by the beta-carbolines, of monoamine oxidase (MAO) ultimately causing DMT to be psychoactive after ingested.  Naturally, when DMT is orally ingested by itself, it is inactivated by MAO.  Soon after ingestion, the levels of 5-HT rise to incredible amounts.  The unnatural changes in brain chemicals as a result of Ayahuasca are believed to cause the powerful visual hallucinations that have been continuously reported.

Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Arauji et. al., the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte took in ten participates whom were all frequent Ayahuasca users and photographed their brains before and after an ingestion of 120-200 mL of Ayahuasca to see where activation in the brain takes place.  A closed-eyes imagery task was completed for both stages.  The imagery task included three conditions: viewing natural images (people, animals, or trees), mentally generating the previously seen images, and then viewing a scrambled version of the image presented in the first condition.  The scrambled image served as a baseline.  Psychiatric scales were also applied at intervals of 0, 40, 80, and 200 min after ingestion to detect symptoms of psychosis and mania.

Results would demonstrate an overall increase in the psychiatric scales after Ayahuasca intake, with a significant increase at 40 and 80 min.  The mean time for DMT in the Ayahuasca mixture to reach its peak concentration, T_max, is 90-120 minutes.  This would also explain why an Ayahuasca experience can last for several hours.  Results from the fMRI data showed significant activity in the occipital, temporal, and frontal cortical areas which are involved with vision, memory, and intention, respectively.

BOLD responses before and after Ayahuasca intake

Moreover, the activity in the occipital areas (BA17, BA19, and BA7) was significant because the BOLD signal amplitude after intake increased during the imagery condition, but not during the natural image condition. It is also worth mentioning that the increased activity of the BA17 location in the occipital region, which works with the cuneus and lingual gyrus, corresponds to the peripheral visual field.  This area may play a major role in why post-Ayahausca imagery is so intense even behind closed eyelids.  Ayahuasca also induced activity in temporal areas in the parahippocampal cortex (BA30) and the retrosplenial cortex (BA37) during the imagery condition, which are areas that deal with the retrieval of episodic memories and the processing of contextual associations.  In addition, frontopolar cortex (BA10) activity was also increased during the imagery condition perhaps because subjects intentionally create the images in their minds and interestingly enough, was the only area to produce a positive BOLD signal during the imagery condition before the intake and then potentiated after intake.

In the Amazon jungle, Kira Salak, a writer for National Geographic, photographs Shamans during an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru.

While my interest continues to grow about this psychotropic plant tea, I can rest assured that I know how my primary visual cortex activity can be intensified and like others be able to experience another dimension of reality behind closed eyes.  Besides its original use in select South American religious ceremonies, Ayahuasca can be used for therapy. People like Donald M. Topping, after going through several sessions of Ayahuasca ingestion, left his oncologist’s office one day with his cancer activity indicator below normal.  Many more have left with their symptoms of depression and anxiety miraculously gone, which can also be seen in another study by R.G. Santos et. al. where they suggest Ayahuasca can produce beneficial effects on mood and anxiety.  Even after its many centuries of use there is still much to be learned about the neural basis of Ayahuasca’s potent psychological effects. Unraveling the mystery of Ayahuasca could potentially be utilized in the future as a readily available alternative medicine.

Seeing with the eyes shut: Neural basis of enhanced imagery following ayahuasca ingestion
– Human Brain Mapping

Effects of ayahuasca on psychometric measures of anxiety, panic-like and hopelessness in Santo Daime members – Journal of Ethnopharmacology

Human Pharmacology of Ayahuasca: Subjective and
Cardiovascular Effects, Monoamine Metabolite Excretion, and
Pharmacokinetics – JPET

Human Pharmacology of Ayahuasca: Subjective and Cardiovascular Effects, Monoamine Metabolite Excretion, and Pharmacokinetics – National Geographic

Ayahuasca and Cancer: One Man’s Experience – Maps.org

For patients who have lost their sight to various eye diseases, artificial retina technology allows them to experience limited vision once more.

The external parts of the artificial retina device include glasses with a mounted camera and a small computer.

The device also includes an electrode implanted onto the patient’s retina. When the camera “sees” an image, the computer is able to translate these into a pattern of neural signals. This pattern is then transmitted to the implanted electrode, and directly stimulates the optic nerve. These signals are then able to be processed by the brain and interpreted as very rudimentary images.

The first artificial retina to be implanted in a patient, known as Argus I, included only sixteen electrodes that stimulated the optic nerve. However, the patient with this implant was still able to tell the differences between light and dark, and could make out basic shapes. The newer version of the technology, Argus II, now includes sixty electrodes. However, it is still limited in that patients can only tell the differences between light and dark areas, and can only see shapes, outlines, and blurs, and not detailed images. Regardless, this is a large improvement over no sight, and patients with the implant are satisfied with simply a partial regain of their vision, and are hopeful that the technology will continue to improve. As of late, a third model of the artificial retina is in development, and will include over 200 electrodes.

Though the project began almost ten years ago, the implant has recently been approved for patients in Europe. The company has not yet submitted approval to the FDA, but hopes to do so by the end of this year.

Second Sight – How is Argus II Designed to Produce Sight?

CBS News HealthPop – First Artificial Retina Approved in Europe

US Department of Energy Office of Science – About the Artificial Retina Project

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology are conducting research that creates a causal link between motor and learning disabilities and dysfunction in visual perception. For example, people who cannot quickly learn a simple motor task such as catching a ball may have difficulty because the cells in their eyes are not perceiving the stimulus properly. The same rings true in individuals with dyslexia – their eyes may not be correctly processing the visual stimuli of words on the page.

Learning disability has long puzzled victims, observers and scientists.

The ocular cells in contest here are deemed “magno cells” and detect rapid movements in our visual field, creating the movie-like perception we experience on a daily basis. Without these, life would look like a disconnected string of frames – much like a comic book. In a test conducted by the researchers, it was found that individuals with difficulty in mathematics also showed difficulty in tracking the randomized movement of a dot on a screen with their eyes, elucidating a link between eye function efficiency, detection of rapid changes in the environment and learning ability.

In a greater context, this finding may have implications in special education and may change the mindset of those working with individuals with additional learning needs. With this new information, learning disability can be combated from the angle of visual field perception. Techniques aiming to strengthen visual perception and eye efficiency (such as eye movement and tracking exercises) could act as a therapy for learning or motor disability previously thought to be localized in the brain itself.

Source: Science Daily via The Norwegian University of Science and Technology