Cracking the neural code

There’s a piece in this month’s Adbusters magazine on ‘cracking the neural code‘ as part of a feature on ‘Big Ideas of 2006’:

Chances are you have never heard of the neural code. And yet, from both a practical and philosophical perspective, the neural code is the most important remaining scientific mystery. Analogous to the machine code of a digital computer, the neural code is the software, set of rules, syntax, that transforms electrical pulses in the brain into perceptions, memories, decisions. A solution to the neural code could – in principle – give us almost unlimited power over our psyches, because we could monitor and manipulate brain cells with exquisite precision by speaking to them in their own private language.

The article is full of sci-fi speculation, but notes that it is grounded in current scientific developments and particularly the developing field of neuroprosthetics.

Link to ‘We’re Cracking the Neural Code, the Brain’s Secret Language’.