2024-03-01 10:32:00
Raúl Casado |
Madrid (EFE).- It is “the sanctuary of the mind”, where people’s personality and identity reside, but the brain is also “the black corner of medicine”, the only organ whose functioning has not yet been deciphered , although the latest advances place neuroscience before a “revolution”.
The arguments are from the Spanish neurobiologist Rafael Yuste, professor and director of the Center for Neurotechnology at Columbia University (United States) and one of the main promoters of the “Brain” project, which was promoted by the administration of Barack Obama and has continued by those of Donald Trump and Joe Biden even involve 550 laboratories around the world with a budget of around $6 billion.
He interrupts the teaching and research activity that he has carried out for twenty years in the United States to present in Madrid the report that he has prepared – at the request of the Congress of Deputies – together with twenty other experts in neuroscience, neurotechnology and bioethics on advances in neuroscience and the ethical implications they have, and analyzes these progress and challenges in an interview with EFE.
Rafael Yuste describes how neurotechnology is already helping to treat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or stroke, but also how it can alter personality, be used to extract confidential data, to improve a person’s cognitive abilities, how it is capable of deciphering images or imagined words or interfering with free will.
Spanish neurobiologist Rafael Yuste, professor and director of the Neurotechnology Center at Columbia University. EFE/ Gema García
Neurotechnologies that surpass medical use
And in front of other colleagues, he unashamedly defends the importance of using all tools, including artificial intelligence, or the emergence of private companies whenever it is to combat the pathologies associated with brain diseases.
“Technology is always neutral; The problem is when the use of neurotechnologies surpasses medicine and is used in the general population for commercial purposes.”
Or applaud the achievement achieved by the company “Neuralink” -owned by billionaire Elon Musk- by implanting a chip in the human brain capable of “reading” neuronal activity and helping to restore brain functions that have been damaged as a result of a heart attack or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, although with a nuance, noting that it is not strictly new and that brain-computer interfaces have been carried out for twenty years in several countries, including Spain.
The neurobiologist maintains that both the new diagnostic tests, which will allow the early detection of these diseases, and the new treatments that act on the causes and not the symptoms – some have already been approved in the United States and in the coming months might be accepted by the EU – constitute “the beginning of what is going to be a revolution.”
Because the increase in life expectancy will lead to one in three people suffering from a degenerative disease associated with aging, and neurotechnology – he maintains – will provide researchers, doctors and psychiatrists with “the key” to unravel the enigmas of the brain and “enter” this organ to help patients.
Challenges? “Many”. This technology will make it possible to interfere in a person’s brain to combat and slow down the course of a disease, “but also to act for purposes that are not exactly beneficial,” said the researcher, and has stressed at that point the importance of have “clear” rules of the game that always adjust to humanistic values and human rights.
Protection of “neurorights” and brain data
The Spanish neurobiologist Rafael Yuste, poses during an interview with EFE in Madrid. EFE/ Gema García
Rafael Yuste suggests the importance of preparing bills that protect “neurorights” and “brain data”, legislative initiatives that have already been implemented in several countries (Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico or in the US state of Colorado) to safeguard brain activity and all the personal information that can be extracted from it.
And it differentiates the use of technologies that are only within the reach of neurosurgeons, “which are perfectly regulated as medical devices”, from others that go beyond the medical field, which are marketed through large digital and e-commerce platforms for recreational uses (glasses, headbands, bands, headphones or bracelets) that lack any type of regulation but can also be used to access neural data that can then be marketed.
The neuroscientist from Madrid maintains during the interview that the challenges of medical research are still many (cancer, cardiovascular diseases, etc.) but also that the brain “is the black corner of medicine”, because it is the only organ whose physiology has not yet been understood. understands.
“Not understanding the physiology of an organ means that doctors, psychiatrists and neurologists struggle heroically, with their hands tied, because they are trying to fix a machine that they do not know how to work.”
And he concludes that illuminating this “black corner” is the main current medical challenge to unravel all the enigmas that still exist regarding the brain and its functioning and, above all, “to be able to help millions of patients who look us in the face every day.” asking for help”.
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