DARPA to Map Monkey Brains

Primates are again the target of DARPA, the military’s mad science research arm, as they attempt to master the animal kingdom. First it was monkeys capable of mind control, and now DARPA wants to take it another step forward: they’re seeking bids for proposals that would map primate brains. The idea behind the project is to use the data to understand changes in the chimp’s cerebral neural pathways, and eventually use that data to to help humans recover more quickly from brain injuries.

And they want more than a diagram of the brain:

The ultimate goal of the program is the ability to create a biologically accurate computational model of relevant structures and networks in the brain, generalizable to the whole brain. The model should accurately depict brain activity during task learning and in response to sensory stimuli.

DARPA is requesting an “in silico” bio-computational replica of a primate’s brain as a starting point for the new project. The computer brain should be modeled on the mind of a monkey performing complex tasks through multiple neural pathways, and be sophisticated enough to “determine an alternate path to task accomplishment” in case of damage to one or more of its sensory input channels.

“Investigators should validate the ability of their model to address and enable recovery from injury by perturbing their system so as to mimic or simulate an injured brain... Performance of the complex task after perturbation should be relatively stable as compared with performance prior to perturbation.”

The key to DARPA’s project is neuroplasticity, a field of study the military is trying to catch up on. Adult brains aren’t hard-wired, but can adapt and reorganize into new neural pathways. By understanding sensory substitution, the process by which one sense takes over to interpret stimuli if another sense is damaged, DARPA can speed up the recovery process for brain-damaged soldiers.

But the possibilities don’t stop there. Once they’ve got their compu-monkey, DARPA also wants researchers to poke and prod brains of living monkeys to stimulate the reactions they’d get from exposing the primates to natural stimuli. In other words, bypassing the mind-body connection and plopping real beings into artificial worlds. Masterminding the brain in computational terms offers more than a few out-there possibilities – mind-controlled cars, transplanting a consciousness into alternate realities, or, freakiest of all, human reprogramming at the click of a button.

[Image: Francisanderson]