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Ramón y Cajal Nobel Prize Centenary
Written by Raúl Arrabales Moreno   
Thursday, 14 December 2006
Image
Satiago Ramón y Cajal

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (May 1, 1852 - Octiber 17, 1934) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906 (jointly with Camillo Golgi). This Spanish scientist is considered one of the founders of neuroscience. Ramón y Cajal was very prolific in histologic studies of the central nervous system. His most salient work is included in [1] (Spanish) and [2] (English).

[1] Ramón y Cajal S. Estudios sobre la degeneración y regeneración de sistema nervioso. 2 vols. Madrid: N. Moya, 1913–14.

[2] S. Ramón y Cajal, Studies on the degeneration and regeneration of the nervous system, 2 vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1928).

 

 

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 10 April 2007 )
 
Phantom limbs and virtual reality
Written by Raúl Arrabales Moreno   
Monday, 04 December 2006

Scientists from Manchester University (Murray and his team [1][2]) have proven that patients suffering pain in their inexsistent phanton limbs can relieve pain by using visualisation. Using different techniques, from a simple mirror to advanced virtual reality systems where the patient is able to even control the virtual limb, researchers have proven that visualisation can help the brain to relieve the 'phantom' pain.

Somehow, the brain recalls sensory information coming from the amputated limb, and this causes conscious pain in the patient. These results suggest that self-consciousness mechanisms are affected by the amputation and the brain cannot automatically adapt its internal model.

[1] C. D. Murray, E. Patchick, S. Pettifer, T. Howard, J. Kalkarni, and C. Bamford. Investigating the efficacy of a virtual mirror box in treating phantom limb pain in a sample of chronic sufferers. International Journal of Disability and Human Development, page to appear, 2007.

[2] C. D. Murray, S. Pettifer, T. Howard, E. Patchick, J. Kalkarni, and C. Bamford. The treatment of phantom limb pain using immersive virtual reality: three case studies. Disability and Rehabilitation, page to appear, 2007.

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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 December 2006 )
 
Consciousness in Vegetative State?
Written by Raúl Arrabales Moreno   
Sunday, 10 September 2006

As reported last week in Science, a team of researchers in Cambridge have demonstrated that a patient in vegetative state preserved conscious awareness. Using a fMRI scanner the patient showed same activation patterns as healthy volunteers when she was asked to imagine playing tennis. Dr. Adrian Owen, the leader of this research, claim that the vegetative diagnosed brain was able to understand the meaning of sentences and respond consciously. For a detailed description of the research visit the Medical Research Council website. This specific research work is published in Science, 8th September 2006 under the title Detecting Awareness in the Vegetative State.

If these research conclusions are confirmed, it means that current techniques to assess the level of consciousness of humans are not fully valid. One might be unable to move or speak, however that does not neccesarily means that the subject is unable to experience some level of consciousness.

Taking this idea about consciousness level assesment to the field of machine consciousness, one could think about the best way to determine the level of awareness of a robot. Obviously, the first reference is always the Turing test. However, as demonstrated in humans, a purely external evaluation could not be valid in terms of assessing the real level of consciousness of an artificial entity. Anyway, from a strictly engineering point of view this question is irrelevant.

 

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Last Updated ( Saturday, 04 November 2006 )
 
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Conscious-Robots.com pages for MSRS (Microsoft Robotics Studio)

These pages include information, MSRS services, C# sample code, and resources for the programming of real and simulated robots using MSRS. These pages can be of interest for anyone working on autonomous mobile robotics. Most of the code and applications included in this section is intended for its use in academic projects on robotics.

 

 
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