Threat Tech — Neuroweapons

JUNE is national Mental Health Month

*

…“according to a September 2015 article in Foreign Policy, ‘The same brain-scanning machines meant to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease or autism could potentially read someone’s private thoughts. Computer systems attached to brain tissue that allow paralyzed patients to control robotic appendages with thought alone could also be used by a state to direct bionic soldiers or pilot aircraft. And devices designed to aid a deteriorating mind could alternatively be used to implant new memories or to extinguish existing ones, in allies and enemies alike.’ …”

http://www.thebulletin.org/neuroweapons-threat9494

*

*                                                               

Two years earlier, in September of 2013, “the Guardian newspaper in London published an article which explains that brain drugs will likely be replaced by brain circuit manipulation; this is a huge change from drug research to brain circuit research which is now heavily funded and taking off.

   ” ‘New technologies such as optogenetics suggest that even finer control of brain circuits may be possible,’ [writes] Vaughan Bell, who is a clinical psychologist and visiting researcher… ‘While deep stimulation involves stimulating the brain with electrical currents, optogenetics involves injecting neurons with a benign virus that contains the genetic information for light-sensitive proteins. The brain cells then become light sensitive themselves and their activity can be controlled with millisecond flashes of light sent through embedded fiber optic cables. Until now, this has only been demonstrated in animals but there are high hopes that it could lead to precisely controlled treatment in humans…’ “

Neuroweapons, Neuroscience and “Brain Circuit Manipulation”: Inside Story of Obama’s Mind Control Project

*

Optogenetics is essentially the study of light-sensitive proteins called opsins. Dr. Karl Deisseroth of Stanford, developer of the science of optogenetics and a practicing psychiatrist, found his experimental opsins in green algae: “In the summer of 2004, Deisseroth opened his own lab at Stanford and hired a brilliant PhD student named Feng Zhang.. to do the delicate work of introducing the pond-scum opsin into a brain cell. The opsin would have to be smuggled into the cell using a virus, but at a concentration that would not kill the neuron…  Zhang chose a benign lentivirus…[and] After a year of experiments, the team had created the world’s first reliable technology for generating light-sensitive neurons that signaled at the speed of the brain… Finally, they devised a means for attaching small bits of DNA to the opsins, which acted like a password, insuring that they would be produced only in the correct cells. Then they had to figure out a way to deliver flashes of light to regions deep inside the brain, and settled for a fiber-optic wire attached to a laser diode. In late 2005, they began..tests to see if they could control behavior in mice”…

A Clear View of the Brain

 *                                                                             the “joystick” mouse

• Word Origin

noun, plural lentiviruses.

1.  any slow virus of the genus Lentivirus, of the retrovirus family, causing brain disease in sheep and other animals. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/lentivirus

(some explanation will be required here)

*

In his New Yorker magazine interview linked above, however, Dr. “Deisseroth warns that [human psycho-] therapies face considerable hurdles owing to the unknown effects of injecting viruses into the brains of living patients. But..some clinicians are already looking at possible treatments in the peripheral nervous system –the nerves that go to the arms and legs.” 

*                                                                                                                    Karl Deisseroth

Dr. D. went on to invent another breakthrough brain-tool technology because “X-rays and other techniques that use light to penetrate the tissues don’t work because of the brain’s high volume of fats and water, which cause light to disperse… [To his wife] Deisseroth said something about how great it would be if one could render a brain completely transparent… In his office, Deisseroth wondered if he could displace the fats and the water with a scaffold that would support the [nerve tissue] wiring but allow light to penetrate –perhaps a hydrogel, a water-based polymer used to support cells in human tissue repair. He opened a ..notebook and began to fill pages with.. ideas for what he called an ‘endoskeleton’ that would ‘digest away’ the fats and the water… The idea became CLARITY, an acronym for ‘Clear Lipid-exchanged Anatomically Rigid Imaging/immunostaining-compatible Tissue hYdrogel’. CLARITY is Deisseroth’s second great contribution to neuroscience –a method for rendering cadaver brains completely transparent save for the perfectly intact cells and nerve fibers… It has since become a standard tool.. around the world.

   “…The technology has been adopted..[and] endorsed by the BRAIN Initiative, to make a complete map of a mouse’s brain and, perhaps eventually, the human brain –an undertaking on the scale of the Human Genome Project in which researchers will plot and categorize the nearly hundred billion neurons and the hundred trillion connections among them.”

*

2016 Plans for Human Trials:

…“The new technology relies on opsins, a type of ion channel consisting of proteins that conduct neurons’ electrical signaling. Neurons contain hundreds of different types of ion channels but opsins open in response to light. Some opsins are found in the human retina but those used in optogenetics are derived from algae and other organisms. The first opsins used in optogenetics, called channel rhodopsins, open to allow positively charged ions to enter the cell when activated by a flash of blue light, which causes the neuron to fire an electrical impulse. Other opsin proteins pass inhibitory, negatively charged ions in response to light, making it possible to silence neurons as well. Researchers have widely expanded the arsenal of available opsins with genetic engineering, for example making ones that stay open in response to a short burst of light.

   The main challenge before optogenetic therapies become a reality is getting opsin genes into the adult human neurons to be targeted in a treatment. In rodents researchers have employed two main strategies: transgenics, in which mice are bred to make opsins in specific neurons—an option unsuitable for use in humans. The other method uses a virus to implant a gene into a neuron. Viruses are currently being used for other types of gene therapy in humans, but challenges remain. Viruses must penetrate mature neurons and deliver their gene cargo without spurring an immune reaction. Then the neuron has to express the opsin in the right place, and it has to go on making the protein continuously—ideally forever.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/revolutionary-neuroscience-technique-slated-for-human-clinical-trials/

*

June, 2016 –Predictably, “The invention of optogenetics greatly accelerated the pace of progress in brain science. But experimenters were limited by the difficulty of delivering light deep into brain tissue. Now ultrathin, flexible microchips, each one hardly bigger than a neuron, are being tested as injectable devices to put nerves under wireless control. They can be inserted deep into a brain…”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/optogenetics-lights-up-therapeutic-neuroscience/

*

*

A lifetime transgene viral vector:

2008 –“AAV [adeno-associated virus] was initially considered as a vector by only a few laboratories…[but] with time, it has become among the most commonly used viral vectors… [because] almost all other viral vectors lead to an initial burst of transgene expression that commonly disappears after a relatively short time, measured in weeks. AAV transgene expression, on the other hand, frequently persists for years or the life time of the animal...”

www.ncbi.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570152/

*

“Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are small viruses that affect humans and other..primate species. They belong to the parvovirus family and require a helper virus, such as adenovirus, herpes simplex virus, or vaccinia virus, to replicate… If no helper virus is present, they are able to incorporate themselves into the host cell’s genome and latently replicate as the host cell replicates.”

http://www.microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Adeno-Associated_Viruses_as_Gene_Therapy_Vectors

*

*                                                                          

Using Light to deliverTouch:

March 2012– “We have recently generated.. transgenic lines of rat in which …some neurons were endowed with photosensitivity by the introduction of the ChR2 gene, coding an algal photoreceptor molecule… We identified that ChR2 is expressed in a certain population of large neurons in the DRG [dorsal root ganglion]..[and] were classified as mechanoreceptive… Each..rat showed a sensory-evoked behavior in response to blue LED flashes on the plantar skin. It is thus suggested that each rat acquired an unusual sensory modality of sensing blue light through the skin as touch-pressure.”

*

“Is it possible that one could hear light, smell light, taste light and touch light? When ChR2 [algal opsin] is targeted to different peripheral sensory neurons by viral vectors… the animals can sense the light as various sensations such as hearing, touch, pain, [etc.].”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26903290/

*

*       

*

*

                                        New Inner Light — Quantum Dots

*

From the Department of Energy: “Quantum Dots are nanoparticles of semiconductor that can be tuned to glow in a rainbow of colors. Since their discovery in the 1980s, these remarkable nanoparticles have held out tantalizing prospects for all kinds of new technologies… Excite a quantum dot and it glows brightly… The smaller the dot, the bluer the light. The larger the dot, the redder. Quantum dots can likewise be tuned to absorb specific wavelengths of light, a useful property for solar cells. In comparison… a light-emitting diode (LED) made of one material may glow green while another glows red. To get different colors, you must use different materials….

“…when the dots are stimulated into emitting light, that light can be detected outside the body and turned into a detailed image of the tissue. Because quantum dots emit light at a particular frequency, dots of several different sizes could be used simultaneously to image different parts of the body. However, a major obstacle has been finding a way to encapsulate the quantum dots, to protect the dots (and the body) from damage, and to allow them to automatically attach themselves to the proper parts of the body. Only very recently have scientists found ways to do this. Today there are numerous researchers looking for ways to put quantum dots inside casings made of chemicals that protect the dots while inside the body. Then bits of DNA are attached to the casings to allow the dots to become attached to particular kinds of cells.” http://www.ethw.org/Quantum_Dots

*

Need Wiring?  Viral assembly of nanowires from Quantum Dots:

…“In this article, it was found that quantum dots (QDs) can induce simian virus 40 (SV40) capsid assembly in dissociation buffer where viral capsids should be disassembled [bold emphasis added–JL]… [E]xperimental results showed that the SV40..protein can be assembled..in the dissociation buffer when QDs are present and that the QDs are encapsulated in the SV40 capsids. Moreover, there is a strong affinity between QDs and the SV40..proteins… This study provides a new understanding of the assembly mechanism of SV40 virus-based nanoparticles with QDs which may help in the design and construction of other similar virus-based nanoparticles.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23776332

*

“Bacteriophage viruses that have been genetically engineered have been used in..the production of quantum dots. Viruses have shown an ability to detect types of semiconductor surfaces and viral crystalline structures can be adjusted by controlling the..solution, as well as the external magnetic field.”

http://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/Quantum-Dot-Production.aspx

*

 *                       

*                                                                                                         tumor-locating on a rat loaded with QDs in MRI

*

Monkey virus, SV40, is known to readers of the blog as not just the “contaminant” distributed in Salk and Sabin polio vaccines of the 1950s and ’60s. I contend, rather, that the polio-related SV40 was an intentional genetic tag included in vaccines for multi-generational population tracking, according to the mandate of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission to study radiation effects over a span of one-hundred years. Polio is readily caused by radiation as the document record proves. By the early 1960s when SV40 was identified in the press as a vaccine contaminant, its transgenic properties were already known by many scientists. Albert Sabin oversaw recombinant SV40 studies done at Israel’s Weizmann Institute when he became its director in 1970-72. In keeping with the neuroweaponry theme, the poliovirus itself has been called “the perfect human OFF switch.” Read more about it here: http://www.polioforever.wordpress.com

    SV40 literature beginning in the 1960s indicates a scientific opinion regarding its relative harmlessness in humans.

*

Encephalitis-inducing viruses are top candidates in this new type of psychiatric transgene therapy which brings back our  frenemy GMO polio [pardon my ‘O’], currently in use as as brain cancer treatment. This investigator has no citations on hand showing a specific optogenetic application for poliovirus, but natural logic and history suggests it will be tried if not already –any discovered finds of poliovirus for this purpose will be added to the post. The scenario of  therapeutic transgene poliovirus adopted as the global vaccine antigen raises some formidable concern about present transhumanism. Perhaps emerging vectors like West Nile Virus and Zika, for which there are no current vaccines but everybody will get them when there are, would preferentially suit the public mental health agenda.

*

2004– “Poliovirus-based vectors (replicons) can be used for gene delivery to motor neurons of the CNS…” www.online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/104303401753153893

2008– “..oncolytic nonpathogenic poliovirus recombinant… for therapeutic application against glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Poliovirus exhibits natural target tropism for GBM” www.nature.com/mt/journal/v16/n11/full/mt2008184a.html

*

Another viral-nanoparticle machine is the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV):  “…we show a novel electronic memory effect by incorporating platinum nanoparticles into tobacco mosaic virus… The mechanism of this process is attributable to charge trapping in the nanoparticles for data storage…”

                                                                     …“image of TMV nanowire conjugated with Pt nanoparticles..uniformly attached at the surface of the virus wire… This TMV-Pt composite system exhibits unique conductance-switching behavior and can therefore be used in the first electronic biomemory device.”   http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v1/n1/full/nnano.2006.55.html

*

Plant virus makeover for mammals : “Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) is an RNA virus that typically infects plants but has recently been adapted for vaccine development owing to the suitability of the virions for modifications as nanoparticles… [W]e describe how TMV self-assembly properties are being used to make a new mammalian RNA pseudovirus that has unique characteristics for RNA and protein antigen delivery.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18251692

*

                                                    Barely fiction: Supersoldiers and viral vectors

*

Thinking It Through

*                                                     New Thinking Cap: “Researchers believe that new ‘thinking caps’ could help provide super-human strength, highly enhanced concentration, or thought-controlled weaponry… Some techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) are already used…”  www.telegraph.com.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9114975/New-thinking-cap-technologies-that-control-weaponry-a-step-closer.html

*                                                                                        

*                   Brain to Computer   

*

MRI

                                      Imaging Tech:  Brain-mapping to Mind-reading:

…“Over the last few years, researchers have made significant strides in decoding our thoughts based on brain activity.

How this would work is still at the very early stages of development. But, given what we can already do, it’s not a huge leap to imagine that one day we could read the words of people’s internal streams of thought, said Jack Gallant, a prominent neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.”

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/12/health/brain-mind-reading/index.html

*

*

Memory Formation

*

*                     * Total Recall *

2009 –…“Wolfson Institute..at University College London [has] developed a way to activate a small subset of the neural circuit that underlies a specific memory… The researchers took advantage of a gene called c-fos, which is expressed by recently activated neurons, and used the portion that controls gene expression to turn on the light-sensitive protein channelrhodopsin…” http://www.bioedonline.org/news/nature-news/total-recall-achieved/

*

2016 –At MIT “Tonegawa’s lab has identified cells in the brain’s hippocampus that store specific memories. The researchers have also shown that they can manipulate these memory traces, or engrams, to plant false memories, activate existing memories, or alter a memory’s emotional associations.“ https://clinicalnews.org/2016/03/16/lost-memories-can-be-found/

*

*

*Beyond the Blue

*Memory Holes   * *

 Multi-Sensory Environment (MSE) Room therapy, in general use for preschools and nursing homes, is where participants can ‘safely’ interact with electronics and music — is this a “treatment” in advance of a “therapy”?

http://www.snoezelen.info/elements-of-a-snoezelen-sensory-room

*

Future postings: a decade of advances in optogenetics; more than two decades in mind-mapping; the 2013 BRAIN Initiative and similar programs that  ought to help clarify how the “last mile in the Telecosm” is you.

*