External stimuli to the nervous system?

[VoloScientiam]

OK. As I am new to the subject, I have very little to no knowledge of it what so ever.

 

I wish to know several things as follows: how do the senses, sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing function; how do they travel along the nervous system to the brain; how does the brain interpret these signals (if there is a term for them I would like to know that as well); can they be stimulated into producing false sensations by artificial stimuli; and lastly, if the answer to the last question be yes, as i know hallucinogens do something similar, can the effects be controlled, thus being able to create images, smells and so on, at the will of the user.

 

I am not asking weather we can control what a hallucinogen depicts to the user, but weather by some other form of stimulus can we create false sensations, for example, to make someone see, and smell a flower that is not there.

 

On another note, when i speculate on this, it seems to me that if we were trying to induce a false image on someone, it would be possible to use their own memories to create something, if we knew what triggered the event that brings memory to awareness. Your thoughts on this?

 

 

If you have anything you think might be helpful e-mail me king_o_queens3@hotmail.co.uk

[Mr Skeptic]

Nerve impulses from the senses travel like any other, though they start off at a sensor instead of another nerve. If you close your eye and put some pressure on it with your fingers, you will probably see some visual effects. Rub hot peppers on your skin, or mint, and it will feel like temperature effects. You could directly stimulate the nerves with electricity, but to make specific effects you'd have to have some very fine wires carefully placed. In theory you should be able to completely control the senses of a person like that, a perfect virtual reality, but in practice that would be too complicated. Vision in particular would require massive numbers of electrodes, and smell we hardly know anything about.

[VoloScientiam]

Thank you. Would there be a way to do this all through the brain if not the nervous system itself?

[Mr Skeptic]

Only partially. Some signal processing is done along the way, which is fine if you know what the signal processing was and did that to your signal before inputting it to the brain. However, if nothing else than your reflex reactions would be bypassed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex_arc

[Genecks]

OK. As I am new to the subject, I have very little to no knowledge of it what so ever.

 

I wish to know several things as follows: how do the senses, sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing function; how do they travel along the nervous system to the brain; how does the brain interpret these signals (if there is a term for them I would like to know that as well); can they be stimulated into producing false sensations by artificial stimuli; and lastly, if the answer to the last question be yes, as i know hallucinogens do something similar, can the effects be controlled, thus being able to create images, smells and so on, at the will of the user.

 

I am not asking weather we can control what a hallucinogen depicts to the user, but weather by some other form of stimulus can we create false sensations, for example, to make someone see, and smell a flower that is not there.

 

On another note, when i speculate on this, it seems to me that if we were trying to induce a false image on someone, it would be possible to use their own memories to create something, if we knew what triggered the event that brings memory to awareness. Your thoughts on this?

 

 

If you have anything you think might be helpful e-mail me king_o_queens3@hotmail.co.uk

 

1) how do they travel along the nervous system to the brain;

 

Through electrical events involved but not limited to... depolarization, hyperpolarization, and graded potentials throughout various cells if not one particular cell depending on the species.

 

They can travel via electrical and/or chemical synapses.

 

2) how does the brain interpret these signals (if there is a term for them I would like to know that as well);

 

Through electrical events involved but not limited to... depolarization, hyperpolarization, and graded potentials throughout various cells if not one particular cell depending on the species.

 

3 & 4) can they be stimulated into producing false sensations by artificial stimuli; and lastly, if the answer to the last question be yes, as i know hallucinogens do something similar, can the effects be controlled, thus being able to create images, smells and so on, at the will of the user.

 

yes; yes

 

Thoughts)

 

If we are all really hooked up to some incredibly high-tech machine and just brains in a vat, this is quite some impressive engineering (hundreds of years away by our feeble standards) to be hooked-up to. Perhaps the act of generating a recursion through making such brain-in-vat technology would cause the superuser to shutdown the computer or system, thus freeing us.

 

Nah, that's just crazy talk.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Genecks

[J2014]

I am not asking weather we can control what a hallucinogen depicts to the user, but weather by some other form of stimulus can we create false sensations, for example, to make someone see, and smell a flower that is not there.

 

The below study shows its possible to stimulate parts of the visual cortex using arrays of micro electrods and induce the perception of points of light in blind people. The same thing is also possible using TMS. It is concieveable therefore using very complex mutielectrode arrays or some advanced form of TMS that these points of light could be turned in to patters that represent some virtual reality...... long time from that tho.

 

I think the same same is true for stimulation of the somatosensory cortex and the inducition of tactile perceptions.

 

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19660667

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1891194

[Ahsan Iqbal]

You need to understand the basic pattern of working of the nervous system. The nervous system operates in the following manner:

A sensory organ perceives an external stimulus and converts into electrical signals. These electrical signals are conveyed from the sensory organ to the Central Nervous System through sensory neurons. The Central Nervous System relays the information and processes it, thus ordering specific responses. These responses are also generated in the form of electrical signals that travel through the motor nerves to an effector organ. The effector organ translates the electrical signals into physical or chemical work.

Thus you see that the nervous system operates on three primary things.

1) Conversion of Physical or Chemical Stimuli into electrical signals

2) Processing, relaying and transferring of these signals through the body and the nervous system itself

3) Translation of the electrical responses generated by the CNS into Chemical or Physical work.

[Marat]

There is already a U.S. patent (# 4,666,425) for a disembodied 'brain in a vat,' kept alive by being hooked up to a variety of life support machines, so it might be easier to subject this poor subject to a variety of illusions by chemical and electrical stimuli. It is described in detail in a book by Chet Fleming, 'If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive' (St. Louis: Polinym Press, 1987). The schematic diagram of the arrangement has the decency to show the disembodied head only from the back, fortunately.

[us-tech.us]

the brain works exactly like a computer, or an electronic circuit, at least functionally. there is a 1 to 1 correspondence.

http://us-tech.us/brain/

 

 

[Joshua201]

Thank you. Would there be a way to do this all through the brain if not the nervous system itself?

 

 

yes. the brain can be directly stimulated without peripheral stimulation. and you need to understand nerve physiology before knowing how the information travels to the brain

 

Thank you. Would there be a way to do this all through the brain if not the nervous system itself?

 

 

yes. the brain can be directly stimulated without peripheral stimulation. and you need to understand nerve physiology before knowing how the information travels to the brain