Can the brain be disrupted by electromagnetic fields?

[MirceaKitsune]

As it's known, the brain is a biological electric device. It operates using weak electrical signals... which is how it stores information, makes connections and sense out of things, activates certain muscles, and everything else involved. The more a part of the brain is solicited, the more neural activity can be seen there, making it clear how relevant electric signals are in any conscious process.

 

With this understanding, I've been wondering about a less common possibility; Can strong electromagnetic fields disrupt the brain, as they disrupt any electrical device? For example, could an EMP weapon knock someone unconscious, cause loss of memory, unwilling / uncontrolled muscle activity, or even have dangarous and life threatening results? What form of interaction or phenomenons can disrupt or drain electricity in the body and brain, and what results does such have exactly?

 

I heard of EMP attacks being used to break electrical machinery, but not of it happening to living beings. Since the brain and other body parts work with electricity however, I don't see why it couldn't. I assume this could scramble all signals in the brain, leading to the person seeing / hearing / feeling radom things and twitching uncontrollably. Or cause signals to not reach their destination... temporarily leaving the person paralyzed, causing loss of memory, or bringing the person unconscious. More dangerously though, maybe this could cause permanent amnesya too, in case permanent neural connections are also scrambled?

 

On a joking note, this could be used to create a new gun for the police force; The wireless taser Or why not the ideal house alarm, which knocks any burglar unconscious when detecting motion.

[Phi for All]

I don't think the brain's electrochemistry is affected in the same way as electronics are affected by strong EM.

[iNow]

I think it's a bit of a mistake to think of the brain is operating on a weak electrical signals. While there is a grain of truth in that suggestion, we must recall what generates those weak electrical currents, and that is chemistry.

 

The biological structure is based on connections between neurons. It is the nature of those connections (how dense they are, how many dendrites are touching, how thick they are, what is the nature of the insulation layer surrounding them, etc.) that dictates all of those other downstream activities like memory, muscle activation, or even consciousness itself. Further, it is those structures that generates the chemistry that ultimately generates the action potentials in the electric current.

 

The point being that, while using analogies of computers and high-tech equipment can assist in understanding, we must be continually aware of the important differences between the brain those other tools and systems.

 

AFAIK, a broad EMP would not do the things you suggest. However, slight changes in cognition and affect could be influenced with a very focused and strong field apply to the right area or region of the brain. Specifically, you might be interested in researching and reading more about a process known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. Most commonly, this is used in the treatment of various depressions and disorders.

 

There are even studies that have shown how transcranial magnetic stimulation of certain brain regions can trigger a deep sense of oneness with the universe and connection to god or gods. It's really a fascinating field, but the energies involved and the placement/location of the applied stimulus are much more focused than anything you might be considering with a broad EMP (such as that you described in OP).

 

Likewise, these applied magnetic fields tend only to influence our cognition or emotional state, and do not tend to impact muscle activity in the same way you might see with a taser or with the application of a direct electrical current to those muscle cells or nerve fibers.

Edited May 17, 2014 by iNow

[MirceaKitsune]

Thank you for clarifying. Sounds like I was quite off with my initial understanding, where I thought the brain would experience electro magnetic disruption the same way an electronic device does.

 

Thinking better now, it would probably be quite a problem if I would have been right. For instance, it would mean that solar storms throughout history would have caused people and animals to black out, reducing the chances of survival for many beings. While in today's society, magnets and electromagnets would have to be treated as hazardous materials, as even walking past one would cause strange effects. So it's good that the brain and body are more secure from magnetic fields.

 

Although this is a little different compared to the original question, I was wondering one more thing: What would still happen if electrical signals could be sucked out of a biological body before they reach their destination? For example if a person touched a device which has the ability to suck all and any electric current that gets in touch with it... the opposite of electrocution in a sense, or the effect of grounding. I don't know if such a device exists in reality, but what would it theoretically be like if not.

[Prometheus]

... unwilling / uncontrolled muscle activity...

 

There is this technology, though it's not being used for quite what you have i mind. It's still an early tech and thankfully only therapeutic uses are being explored (as far as i know anyway).

[wanghankun]

fMRI- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines uses strong magnetic field directly onto your brain.

yes, the brain is disrupted by the magnetic field in some degree. The hydrogens lines up to the magnetic field. however, no effect to the conciousness of the dude in fMRI are ever shown. unless he walked into the fmri with some types of metal implant lol the dudes conciousness must be scarred for life...

 

 

ps: i realized my understanding might be wrong. please correct me.

Edited May 17, 2014 by wanghankun

[iNow]

On another note, this is a brilliant visualization called a glass brain fly through (description below):

 

 

 

 

This is an anatomically-realistic 3D brain visualization depicting real-time source-localized activity (power and "effective" connectivity) from EEG (electroencephalographic) signals. Each color represents source power and connectivity in a different frequency band (theta, alpha, beta, gamma) and the golden lines are white matter anatomical fiber tracts. Estimated information transfer between brain regions is visualized as pulses of light flowing along the fiber tracts connecting the regions.

 

The modeling pipeline includes MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) brain scanning to generate a high-resolution 3D model of an individual's brain, skull, and scalp tissue, DTI (Diffusion Tensor Imaging) for reconstructing white matter tracts, and BCILAB (http://sccn.ucsd.edu/wiki/BCILAB) / SIFT (http://sccn.ucsd.edu/wiki/SIFT) to remove artifacts and statistically reconstruct the locations and dynamics (amplitude and multivariate Granger-causal (http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/G...) interactions) of multiple sources of activity inside the brain from signals measured at electrodes on the scalp (in this demo, a 64-channel "wet" mobile system by Cognionics/BrainVision (http://www.cognionics.com)).

 

The final visualization is done in Unity and allows the user to fly around and through the brain with a gamepad while seeing real-time live brain activity from someone wearing an EEG cap.

[herb w.]

Yes, the brain can be affected by high Tesla magnetic fields. Ever hear of the magnetic stimulator? It's been used for years in electromyograms (EMG) to apply a short duration, high intensity magnetic field, which depolarizes the nerve. It repolarizes and it gets stimulated. The limb jumps or the sensory nerve works, giving a zing to the person.

 

The same paddle can be used on the brain, which makes it depolarize and part of the body will jump. I've seen it done on stage and it's quite harmless and interesting.

 

fMRI (functional MRI) does NOT depolarize the brain, nor do usual MRI's. There is no disruption of thinking or anything else, as the field strength is too weak.

 

You can Google & read about some of these including the magnetic encephalogram (MEG), which when used in tandem (comparing data) with the fMRI, is giving very useful data about how specific areas of the brain work.

 

When combined wth a theoretically possible point magnetic stimulator, the gyri could be explored, sequentially, using stereotactic methods, well worked out in neurosurgery. As each magnetic point stimulation would stop functioning of an area in the gyrus as long as the field was pulsing, using data from the MEG and fMRI, we could detect what was turned off temporarily and thus explore the brain gyri in exquisite detail, using the 3 methods together. This would create, essentially a brain map of functions all through out the cortex of the brain, and possibly deeper structures, giving us huge amounts of new data about what structures & areas in the cortex of the brain subsume functions. The potential would be enormous, if it can be done, which seems likely.

 

http://jochesh00.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/the-praxis/

Just go to the above article, the "Praxis", and about 55% of the way down to :

 

""Currently, functional MRI (fMRI) is being combined .... with Magnetic Encephalogram (MEG) to study structure/function relationships in the brain.""

 

And read through it. It will give you some idea what's possible using these 3 methods. The Cortical Evoked potential, or P300 written above this can give you some idea what can be detected in brain using these methods, today. Actually, we can almost see a thought, electrically, but we have to rely upon the subjects reports, mostly, to confirm it.

 

There is a journal report which shows they were able to ID the number a person was thinking of, from 1 thru 9, simply by reading the magnetic activity of the Left Inferior parietal area of brain concerned with thinking of a number in the mind. This is the mind/brain interface capabilities which are coming. It's quite exciting, too.

 

Shades of "Total Recall"!!

Edited June 3, 2014 by herb w.

[Hazel M]

I think it's a bit of a mistake to think of the brain is operating on a weak electrical signals. While there is a grain of truth in that suggestion, we must recall what generates those weak electrical currents, and that is chemistry.

iNOW, what generates electrical signals in the rest of the universe? I am thinking, from your statement, that it is not chemistry. What is it?

[iNow]

Relevance?

[metacogitans]

'Disrupted by electromagnetic fields' is very vague. Lighting has an electromagnetic field, and that will 'disrupt' just about anything.

[ozwi]

Lightning EMP
This morning where I live in NZ there was a thunder storm & as I lay in bed I was seeing the occasional flicker of lightning through my generally closed eye-lids as I lay resting, followed by thunder claps a few seconds later. I lay there quite relaxed with my eyes closed and my head looking into the sheets and away from the window and after perhaps five minutes with no thunderstorm activity I suddenly experienced a very bright transient image of a light in my head that came and went in a fraction of a second and not at all like the flickers of lightning i had sensed previously. It was followed by a massive thunderclap about three of four seconds later. Perhaps understandably, I believe it is extremely improbable that the image and the thunder were not tied to the same event. However, I also feel strongly that the image was something other than my seeing (through my eyelids) a broad flash of light entering the room from a lightning strike. It had a completely different character. I feel that I could have experienced this equally had I been in a light-proof room. (I'm not saying Faraday cage, just *light* proof.) Now had this been a sound (a 'pop', say) rather than a mental image, I gather I would be on safe physics ground, as I believe an EMP can have an associated sound which is coupled to the EMP and thereby is carried along at the speed of light, c (not propagating as a sound wave at c of course). However, I did not experience a sound, only the mental image as described above. So my tentative hypothesis at present is that I experienced a lightning EMP by virtue of a direct effect it had on my brain as it passed through it (somewhat as it might have had some effect on any nearby electric circuit that it might also have passed through). And my brain rendered this experience as an intensely bright (but painless) white light which was transient and pulse-like, more or less round and of limited size (that is, it did not flood across my full field of vision). I wonder if anyone can comment on this or has had a similar experience?

[tkadm30]

The non-thermal effects of microwave radiation on human biology are poorly understood. The brain is a bioelectromagnetic organ that emit and receive electromagnetic radiation through activation of voltage-gated ion channels. Non-thermal microwave exposure on the brain can produces a variety of physical and behavioral effects.