Elevating the Human Condition
It’s supposedly getting easier for innovative drugs for rare diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy to reach the market. So why, asks Andy Extance, is hesitancy still proving devastating to desperate families?
The Sensorium is a neurofeedback environment that allows people to experience signals from their non-perceptible body processes visually and auditorily. Various (neuro-)physiological rhythms and frequencies are projected simultaneously as soundscapes and “lightscapes” into the environment. A wireless physiological amplifier device sends signals such as EEG and ECG to a computer for real-time processing using the modified brain-computer interface software “Thought Translation Device” (TTD). The TTD performs signal filtering, parametric orchestral sonification, and light control. In a pilot study, 20 participants have been exposed to their ongoing brain and heart signals while sitting inside the Sensorium, a small room equipped with a speaker and lighting system. Almost all of them reported an increase in contentment, relaxation, happiness, and inner harmony. They also reported a widening in their body consciousness. In future, therapeutic paradigms will be developed and the treatment effects on people with psychosomatic diseases will be evaluated.
The project opens the door to a renaissance in DIY development of brain computer interface applications.
A talk describing Beckley’s collaborative pilot study with Johns Hopkins University on the treatment of addiction with psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy and its results.
I realize that a large part of my interest in longevity science derives from fear of death. To the extent that chronic fear is controlling me and perturbing my life experience, the dissolution of the fear of death is a worthy goal, quite independent of longevity.
