Should we be scared?

[I'm Murrin]

www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825264.800.html

The change to their behaviour was permanent.

Does anyone else find the idea of this being possible very disturbing?
Conformity of purpose...

[duchess of malfi]

I find it very disturbing.

If having a person with poor parenting skills as a mother marks you for life, than I am forever doomed.

[The Laughing Man]

whats to stop the govt from putting it in our food? OH! wait, I meant terrorists.

[I'm Murrin]

The real worry: McDonalds. Coca Cola.

(Just in case you're not so quick on the uptake: I'm joking here, people)

[The Laughing Man]

(aren't they behind the "boob movement" in the young lassies these days? )

[I'm Murrin]

Heh.

Seriously, though, the idea that chemical supplements could permanently change a person's behaviour really should frighten you - perhaps more so than the fact that advertising companies are going to use brain scans to target their adverts to people's psychological response.
As it says there, it only takes one dose to permanently change behaviour - if any company uses this stuff (once it's been developed further), well even if they are told to stop immediately (by government or something), anyone given it will already have been affected.

[The Laughing Man]

ain't science great?

[Avatar]

Yep, pretty creepy.

--A

[The Laughing Man]

I find it very disturbing.

If having a person with poor parenting skills as a mother marks you for life, than I am forever doomed.

Duchess, if I had to make a statement based on your fine spirit and wonderful character, I would say that if everyone had your mother, the world would be a better place, regardless.

[Prebe]

Actually what you are looking at here is a potential way of treating genetical illnesses without replacing faulty genes, but just shutting them off. "RNA-guided methylation" sounds good to me.

[I'm Murrin]

Yes, it's worth pursuing for its benefits - but the other possible applications are worrying. The fact that the first evidence they've had was through behaviour modification could be taken as a possible sign of things to come.

[sgt.null]

anyway else picture a drug for folks on welfare? or having criminals take the drug? and the long term effects of such things, and the widespread use of such are unknown factors.

[Avatar]

Yes, it's worth pursuing for its benefits - but the other possible applications are worrying. The fact that the first evidence they've had was through behaviour modification could be taken as a possible sign of things to come.

All knowledge is morally neutral. It's the uses...

--A

[Prebe]

To change the thread title a fraction: "Should we be sacred?"

[Xar]

Don't get too scared yet, people... these results were obtained by injecting the substance directly into the brain, which is not likely to be done by companies As for the rat's behavioural changes due to their mother's behaviour, well, trust me, a rat's maternal instinct is quite different from a human's

It will take a long time, if at all possible, to develop something like this which could work through ingestion... so don't fret too much

[The Laughing Man]

DELIVERING SUBSTANCES INTO THE CNS

METHODS OF INJECTION

There are a variety of ways in which one can deliver agents into the CNS. This can be done peripherally (such as by giving a drug orally or intravenously), or else locally, using stereotaxic methods. When it comes to using stereotaxic methods for local delivery of a substance, one needs to consider the following main questions:

1) what do you want to deliver?;

2) where do you want to deliver the substance?;

3) how much of the substance do you want to deliver, and

4) for how long does this agent need to be administered?

By considering all these questions, one can then design the most effective, and cost-effective, means for delivering agents into the mammalian CNS. Following these questions, you will find detailed descriptions for using the following injection devices: Hamilton syringes The “Nanojector” system with glass micropipettes Alzet micro-osmotic pumps.

Note: Always keep in mind that the CNS is, anatomically, a “closed system” in that it is susceptible to increased pressure, and is thus only able to handle small injection or infusion volumes. Further, the CNS itself is very delicate, and can be damaged very easily. These cautions must always be taken into account when designing any experiment using stereotaxic methods.

What do you want to deliver? Another section of this course deals with the subtleties of the use of various agents for injection, so for the purposes of this discussion, agents to be delivered directly into the CNS can be anything such as drugs, bioactive antibodies or peptides, cell cycle markers (such as BrdU), toxins, trophic factors, cells, polymers, axonal tracers, or viral vectors.

Of course, what you can deliver into the CNS will depend upon the biophysical and biological properties of the substance to be injected. Is it water-soluble? Will it handle the pH conditions of the brain?How well will it disperse within the CNS (and do you want it to disperse)?Where do you want to deliver the agent?You can, in principle, deliver almost any agent to the CNS, and the ability to do so is often simply limited by the ability to get access to that region. Where you deliver a substance will have a great influence over how well that substance can be taken up into the tissues, and how far it will disperse.

For example, a substance will flow more easily throughout the CNS if it is delivered into the ventricular system than if it were injected into the parenchyma (brain cell tissue) itself. The lateral ventricles are a very common site for injection, because of their size and their ability to accept larger volumes of liquid than the CNS parenchyma.

However, almost every brain region has, at one time or another, been the target site for injection of some sort ofsubstance. The only limiting factors for where to inject an agent is, really, access to that site. It is of course much easier to infuse a substance into the CNS ventricles than it is to put it into the brain stem, spinal cord, or retina. However, with practice and surgical modification, this too can be done.

[Avatar]

You been particularly busy of late Esmer?

--A

[The Laughing Man]

• 
  www.whatisfear.com/us/

you could say that.....

[Avatar]

Assumed as much, you've been uncharacteristically quiet of late. Not losing your enthusiasm are you?

--A