Feb 14th, 2007
Is it possible to change a personality?
One of the earliest experiments on the brain involved hooking rats up to an electrode that directly stimulated the “reward” center of the brain. When given the choice to press a lever that would give them food, or a lever that gave them a direct reward, they chose the reward every time and eventually died of starvation.
Some Parkinsons Disease patients also have an electrode hooked up to their brain. The tiny electrical shock in just the right place helps calm the tremors associated with Parkinson’s. Well, at least one patient has a choice of areas to stimulate, and can select a more “calm” are or a more “revved-up” area depending on the mood she wants to have that day.
Science is just that much closer to creating a box so addictive that we’d do anything to get our hands on it, or implanting electrodes in our brain that can alter personalities. The implications are both fascinating and terrifying.