Rafael Yuste: Brain is more powerful than the entire internet – 07/04/2023 – Ilustrada

A single human brain, made up of billions of neurons, has more power than the entire internet in the world.

It is with this premise that Rafael Yuste, named one of the most influential scientists in the world by Nature magazine, began his reflection in the cycle of Fronteiras do Pensamento, in São Paulo, this Monday.

Yuste participates in Brain, a project inaugurated by Barack Obama in 2017, whose objective is to revolutionize the understanding of the human brain.

“All cognitive activities are defined by the brain”, recalled the scientist, who defended the studies of the organ, whose functioning remains mysterious to science, as essential for the advancement in the treatment of neurological, psychiatric and even motor diseases —such as Alzheimer’s, depression , schizophrenia and multiple lateral sclerosis. “Today doctors can do little for patients because they don’t understand the brain,” he defended.

The advances in the knowledge of the organ are, according to him, in studying the coordinated activity of the neurons, and not molecule by molecule —a great challenge until today, due to the lack of technology.

Neurotechnology, explains Yuste, is made up of electronic, optical, molecular and magnetic devices. “They serve to record neuronal activity and change it,” she says.

Many of these technologies are already being used in tests with rats and managed to introduce, into the brain of the animals, images that they were not seeing or memories of facts that they had not experienced.

In humans, the advancement of these techniques could allow people with paralysis to move robotic limbs through a brain implant, for example, or make it possible to communicate with a person with Alzheimer’s who can no longer speak, decoding their thoughts.

But neurotechnology, which is undergoing a “revolution”, according to Yuste, will not only serve to treat diseases. Soon humans will also be using this type of technology to communicate, as if by telepathy, and to use equipment —thus becoming “greater humans”.

Yuste admitted that there are many ethical and social problems with the implementation of these technologies, which is why several scientists involved in the project got together at Columbia University, in the United States, reaching a defense of the reformulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to include norms of protection to the human brain from the misuse of neurotechnology.

Almost like a science fiction movie, Yuste explained that the right to mental privacy, so that the contents of the mind are not decoded without consent, would be at risk without the international code update. The same happens with the right to “mental identity” and free will.

The scientist also mentioned the right to equitable access to cognitive enhancement technologies, “to avoid having improved humans and humans without access to it”.

To put into practice the protection of these rights, it would also be necessary to investigate private neurotechnology companies. “Companies are already acting as owners of the collected brain data”, he warned.

Chile has already drafted a Constitutional Amendment to protect brain data, and Brazil could do the same. Yuste said that the possibility is being discussed with Senator Randolfe Rodrigues. “We need to ensure that these powerful techniques are used for the benefit of humanity,” concluded Yuste.

The Fronteiras do Pensamento cycle already had meetings this year with the writer Rosa Montero and the activist Nadia Murad, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and continues until October.

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