Could technology improve our brains?
Can technology improve our memory, or help cure the symptoms of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s?
What comes to mind when you imagine the future of humanity? Could a computer make your mind more efficient? Enhance your cognition? Or cure a disorder you've been grappling with all your life? CrowdScience listener Mariana from Mexico hopes that one day technology will be able to help improve our brains.
Presenter Alex Lathbridge seeks out some of these brain boosters, exploring emerging technologies in deep brain stimulation at City St George’s University of London in the UK. Professor Francesca Morgante and Dr Lucia Ricciard explain how they’re using technology to treat Parkinson’s.
And could brain technology help with even the most enigmatic elements of our minds? Dr Robert Hampson at Wake Forest University in the USA takes us through his research in restoring memory impairment.
Along the way we interrogate the ethical implications of the breakneck speed of progress in brain augmentation research with researcher Anders Sandberg from the Institute of Future Studies in Sweden.
Presenter: Alex Lathbridge
Producer: Emily Bird
Series Producer: Ben Motley
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- Fri 25 Jul 202519:32GMTBBC World Service
- Fri 25 Jul 202522:32GMTBBC World Service Europe and the Middle East
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