...illustrates the problem well. Here's a nice quote:
"Although researchers worldwide were publishing tens of thousands of neuroscience studies every year, neither our understanding of basic brain functions nor our ability to treat brain disorders seemed to be progressing much. "
It's mostly been a failure. The successes have been very, very limited from what I've read. I'm a non-expert that follows generalist scientific publications that report on breakthroughs and interesting products. So, maybe I've missed all the amazing things neuroscience is doing for people's health outside actual surgeries. I just figure spectacular results coming from all the grants and private investment would've made it into things I read. Rarely anything does past "Hmm. That study had some interesting results that might go somewhere some time with a lot more work." Followed by others that seem to contradict it or at least make me wonder.
I remember recently there was an article showing renewed interests in glial cells since they might be more critical to brain function than previously thought. Imagine that. All this research and money thrown at it since the beginning of the field operated on the assumption that they weren't significant. There were others I saw about neural communication in previous years that overturned prior beliefs. One can wonder what new fundamentals we'll learn in this next decade that will challenge our prior beliefs.
Introducing technology that improves how something functions usually needs accurate knowledge about how that something fundamentally works. Investments like Johnson's bet that results will be achieved without that knowledge or even with incorrect knowledge. Kind of like old gold rushes where people bet there'd be gold all over the place in certain areas without even prospecting them first. That's the feeling I get looking at neural ventures.
Note: We had them in the past, too. Implants to control or expand the mind, cause hallucinations, effortlessly give you lucid dreams, and so on. Enough interesting stuff happened that some tactical accomplishments might come from just throwing money at random stuff. Yet, all the interesting stuff of past and present still hasn't given a non-drug guarantee on things as basic as insomnia, depression, or ADD. All failure so far in big picture.
The best way to do things with limited cash is to invest research into understanding how certain things are happening then devise solutions to specific problems or mechanisms identified. He might succeed where he does that. As other article indicated, that pre-requisite is often not there enough for stuff to happen. The article indicated another project with that problem was failing to tune of hundreds of millions of dollars while whole field was mostly failing to achieve useful stuff.
No, the alternative is for you to invest $100M of your own money into a company to do things in this other alternative instead of the reflexive negativity that's going on here. I know it's easier to complain about how someone else spends their own money though.
There has been some success with things like cochlear and retinal implants. The approach Johnson and Berger appear to be taking doesn't seem so far removed from that.
Oh yes, there's been successes. Thanks for the reminder on those. Johnson and Berger might have a chance if they keep their focus similarly narrow and practical. Personally I hope they succeed as I have brain damage myself. I'm just playing the odds on very ambitious projects that require correctly guessing how the brain works and changing that for the better.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-human-bra...
...illustrates the problem well. Here's a nice quote:
"Although researchers worldwide were publishing tens of thousands of neuroscience studies every year, neither our understanding of basic brain functions nor our ability to treat brain disorders seemed to be progressing much. "
It's mostly been a failure. The successes have been very, very limited from what I've read. I'm a non-expert that follows generalist scientific publications that report on breakthroughs and interesting products. So, maybe I've missed all the amazing things neuroscience is doing for people's health outside actual surgeries. I just figure spectacular results coming from all the grants and private investment would've made it into things I read. Rarely anything does past "Hmm. That study had some interesting results that might go somewhere some time with a lot more work." Followed by others that seem to contradict it or at least make me wonder.
I remember recently there was an article showing renewed interests in glial cells since they might be more critical to brain function than previously thought. Imagine that. All this research and money thrown at it since the beginning of the field operated on the assumption that they weren't significant. There were others I saw about neural communication in previous years that overturned prior beliefs. One can wonder what new fundamentals we'll learn in this next decade that will challenge our prior beliefs.
Introducing technology that improves how something functions usually needs accurate knowledge about how that something fundamentally works. Investments like Johnson's bet that results will be achieved without that knowledge or even with incorrect knowledge. Kind of like old gold rushes where people bet there'd be gold all over the place in certain areas without even prospecting them first. That's the feeling I get looking at neural ventures.
Note: We had them in the past, too. Implants to control or expand the mind, cause hallucinations, effortlessly give you lucid dreams, and so on. Enough interesting stuff happened that some tactical accomplishments might come from just throwing money at random stuff. Yet, all the interesting stuff of past and present still hasn't given a non-drug guarantee on things as basic as insomnia, depression, or ADD. All failure so far in big picture.