As published in the last issue of JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) by Irene Tracey (Oxford University) emotions and motivations play an important role in the mechanisms of the perception of pain in the human brain. Using brain imaging techniques with patients suffering chronic pain neuroscientists have discovered that pain perception areas are activated at the same time as expectation areas. In one hand, anxiety and anticipation can worsen a pain experience. On the other hand, positive experiences can relieve the pain perception.

Cognition and consciousness mechanisms obviously greatly affect the amount of perceived pain. As Tracey argues, pain requires much attention. She has demonstrated that inattentive or amused subjects feel less discomfort when applying heat in the hand. In fact, distraction techniques are being evaluated as painkillers.

Other conscious pain inhibitors are motivations. When a harmful stimulus appears, the perception of the pain can be reduced if there is a reason to ignore the pain. For instance, during the search for food, endogenous opioids are released to eliminate the pain feeling, Tracey explains in her paper.

• Link to University of Oxford PAIN Group. 
  

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  It seems that some governments are taking very seriously the possibility of the everyday use of robots in society. Japan and South Korea are worried about human safety in a world where many critical tasks can be performed by machines. They share the Issac Asimov’s vision of a future world where human beings and robots coexist. However, they don’t seem to trust mechanical creatures controlled by only three simple laws.

 As reported by The Times a few weeks ago, Japanese robotics experts assure that the famous Three Laws are not enough to keep us safe when the next generation robots become a reality. A 60 page draft document titled ‘Guidelines to Secure the Safe Performance of Next Generation Robots’ is being discussed by the industry, researchers, and lawyers with the aim to elaborate a law that protect us effectively.

This draft document proposes the creation of a central database where all incidents of human harmed by robots will be recorded and accessible by robot manufacturers. Therefore, robots must be equipped with the corresponding mechanisms to log and communicate any injures they cause to people during their task accomplishment. Japan is envisioning a near future where robots play a key role in society and they have detected the need for a well-built regulation. It is foreseen that the domestic robot market grow in Japan up to more than 3.3 trillion yen in the next 15 years. Assistant robots able to help and chat with pensioners are already a reality. Nursing robots, security patrol robots, home assistant robots are going to be common in the coming years.

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The Huggable project started in the MIT Media Lab (The Robotic Life Group) in 2005. The Huggable is a new type of robotic companion for healthcare, education, and social communication. It is inspired in traditional companion animal therapy.

The Huggable is equipped with a full body multi-modal sensory skin (see the video below for details), quite mechanical servos, inertial sensors, eyes cameras, ear microphones, and mouth speaker. In addition, it has an embedded PC with WiFi (802.11) communications capability.

The Huggable project has two main components: the Huggable robot itself and a set of Huggable technologies. Additionally, the Huggable robot has two modes of function. On one hand, it can work as a fully autonomous robot interacting with the patient. On the other hand, it can also work as a semi-autonomous robot avatar with some level of human control via the Internet.

These capabilities make the Huggable robot a really interesting platform for many applications in the fields of healthcare and education.

Follow the "read more" link below for additional information and a video of the Huggable.

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First Issue of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness Available

The first issue of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness is available online (Vol. 1. Issue 1. June 2009)! This new journal, exclusively dedicated to the field of Machine Consciousness (aka Artificial Consciousness), has started its publication with an outstanding collection of papers from the leading MC researchers in the world.

This very first issue of IJMC includes papers from Igor Aleksander, John G. Taylor, Bernard J. Baars, Stan Franklin, Antonio Chella, Riccardo Manzotti, Ron Chrisley, Anil Seth, Carlos Hernández, Ignacio López, Ricardo Sanz, Sidney D’Mello, Uma Ramamurthy, Alexei V. Samsonovich, Kenneth A. De Jong, Anastasia Kitsantas, Eva Hudlicka, and Piotr Boltuc. See below for the complete table of contents.

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