Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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CHAPTER 5
The Vibrational Field and
Detection of Neuron Behavior
5.1 Extending Human Sensory Capabilities
Sensors are intricate devices able to extend the limited brain capabilities in the
information exchange with the environment. Our five senses—sight, hearing,
smell, taste and touch—are physiological sensory channels acquiring only the
narrow input necessary for the experiences and reactions we identify as
survival. We need to build microscopes and telescopes, infrared and ultraviolet
detectors because the human eyes perceive only the narrow electromagnetic
radiation from 400 to 700 nm in wavelength, oblivious to all the other
frequencies of the spectrum. Likewise, the human ear responds to a very
narrow range of acoustic frequencies, even narrower after childhood and
sometimes needing hearing aids later in life. We are insensible to the indis-
cernible infrasound and ultrasonic realms of acoustic oscillation. So we
assemble seismographs, radio and microwave technologies to extend far
beyond our restricted capabilities of sensing.
There is also the so-called sixth-sense, which refers to intuition, instinct and
inspiration, something that each of us experience every day. However, we
cannot create sensors for it simply because we do not know how to directly
measure something so non-material with material instruments. Since mind and
consciousness are dicult to comprehend, still considered emerging from the
physiological brain as epiphenomena of its biochemical states, we will focus our
discussion on how biophysical devices can detect neurological events at cellular
and molecular level. The hypothesis that the brain is a transducing 'funnel' (as
Aldous Huxley called it in The Doors of Perception) for the universal conscience
belongs to the fluid frontiers of human knowledge, where the unexplained must
still be explored. We feel that our mind is creating the meaning of all our
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