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Reverse Engineering the Brain Beginning with the Motor CortexNicholas Card (nsc15@pitt.edu)The Human Race’s Relationship to the Human BrainThe current state of the human race’s relationship to the human brain is a strange one; the brain is far too complicated for us to fully understand just yet, but if it were any simpler we would not be able to understand it at all. In the last century, as science and technology has made its largest leap, scientists have made numerous and enormous efforts from many different angles to reverse-engineer the brain, knowing that successfully doing so would grant us the ability to more easily and effectively cure diseases, heal traumatic injuries, develop better artificial intelligence, and more. These efforts to improve quality of life for many people via reverse engineering of the brain are in accordance with the National Society of Professional Engineer’s (NSPE) code of ethics, which states that engineers should at all times strive to serve the public interest as well as to hold paramount the public’s health and welfare [1].To be able to reverse engineer the entirety of the brain and its many functions is a feat far too large to be tackled all at once, however, so we must instead approach this issue in pieces. Different sections of the brain have been firmly established to perform different functions [2]. Additionally, a system such as the brain can only be reverse-engineered, modeled, and reproduced to the extent that the native system is understood in respect to localization function and the cellular mechanisms that enable that function. By these criteria, the best brain system to start with in the quest to reverse engineer the brain is the motor-movement system. It is not only by far the most understood system of the brain, but there are in fact already reverse-engineered clinical trials going on currently, such as Pitt neurobiologist Andy Schwartz’s mind-controlled prosthetics [3]. This is not to say that we have already completely cracked the code of motor-control, but we are much further ahead in understanding this section of the brain than others, such as memory. For this reason, it is in our best interest to begin by strengthening our quest to understand and replicate the brain’s motor-movement system, and then using that knowledge, do the same for the rest of the brain in a systematic manner.Ethics and ControversiesIn addition to focusing first on reverse engineering the motor system of the brain, we should ensure that our methods of doing so are within ethical boundaries. Although there is no widespread argument against the overall idea of reverse engineering the brain, there is some controversy surrounding the methods used to get there. This controversy, primarily fueled by large organizations such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is based off of whether or not it is ethical to use animals for research and experimentation, which is a prominent and necessary research technique in the study of the brain. This issue is legitimate and understandable, but great care is being taken to avoid traumatic experiences for animals in labs. There are many laws and codes of ethics already in place to ensure the humane treatment of research animals, such as the Animal Welfare Act and the Biomedical Engineering Society’s (BMES) code of ethics [4], [5]. Furthermore, animal research provides unparalleled opportunities for experimentation, making it a necessity to understanding how our brains work. In addition to the animal research argument, there is also widespread weariness about some of the possibilities that successful reverse engineering of the brain can open. The most popular fear is the possibility of a cybernetic revolt happening as a result of enhanced artificial intelligence, a situation that has already been imagined for us by Hollywood movies such as Terminator [6]. There are not only several laws and codes of ethics that would be violated by raising a robot army, but also a huge amount of other large hurtles which would have to be cleared in order to do so, all of which will be described in depth in later sections. For these reasons, to deny the human race the key to solve many of its toughest problems for concern about its impact on a research animal or fear of a fictional tale is immoral and wrong.Educational ValueThe multitude of hours that I have spent researching for, writing, and editing this paper have certainly proven to be very beneficial to me in a variety of ways. This assignment forced me to spend a long time thinking about what I’m interested in, and provided me with lots of excellent instruction and feedback on how to effectively write a professional paper. The human brain’s mystery and complexity is tremendously profound, and the research required for this paper of the current progress of reverse engineering of the brain and what the next step in doing so is really highlighted the appeal of that mystery and complexity. Reverse engineering the brain is not only an important objective of mankind as a whole, it is also important to me on a personal level. I don’t want to have to fear losing any of my loved ones, or even myself, to diseases of the brain such as Alzheimer’s-- a disease where the afflicted are unable to retrieve memories-- when we could have made a more effective push to understand and cure them, but did not. The fact here is that in order to be able to cure neural diseases, or to give a paralyzed person back their ability to walk, we must make a larger effort to understand the brain, starting with the motor cortex. It is our moral responsibility to make this effort and if we do not, we have failed both one another and ourselves. Deciphering the Brain: Why Not Start Elsewhere?When considering reverse engineering of the brain, it is important that we begin in a place where we have realistic potential to make progress. In a select few of the subsections of neuroscience and neural engineering, such as the motor-movement system of the brain, there has been great a great amount of progress made, and lots of potential for further advancement. In many of the other more complex areas, however, we do not have as great of an understanding. Two areas that have attracted a particularly large amount of attention, but have not had much substantial progress made, are the memory and cognitive system. The way these systems function in the human brain is quite unique, and are consequently are very difficult starting places for reverse engineering the brain.The Memory SystemVery little is known about how the brain handles, stores, and recalls memories. Memory is one of the qualities that defines the human race, and has therefore attracted lots of attention and research. Unfortunately, however, that research has yielded few definitive results. Consequently, we have very little knowledge of how to go about curing, or even diagnosing, diseases like Alzheimer’s. Currently, our only definitive method of diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in a patient would be to surgically open their skull and cut a cross section of their brain in search for an excess protein that indicates the presence of AD [7]. This type of procedure would almost certainly kill the patient, or at least leave them in a vegetative state, and therefore quite obviously does not comply with BMES’s code of ethics, which promotes the safety, health, and welfare of the public [5]. It is important to remember that our methods of research must remain ethical, so in our current state of understanding we are not ready to approach AD.Our low level of understanding of the brain’s memory system can be attributed to one main reason: the way our brains handle memory is extremely complex. While it has been firmly established and agreed upon that there are different types of memory stored in our brains such as declarative, procedural, and associative, there remains a glaring hole in our knowledge of the subject; how can we define the cellular mechanisms that store memory, how is it harvested in support of behavior, and where are particular types of memory stored [8]? To be able to pursue the answer to these questions and others more effectively, I believe that we should first examine the motor-movement system, and then use the knowledge gained from that to strengthen our approach to deciphering the memory system.The Cognitive SystemAnother recent demonstration of our progress in brain systems other than motor-movement is the closest model of the brain we’ve been able to create as of yet: IBM’s super computer simulator of a cat’s brain. The process of attempting to reproduce the brain not only requires a complex understanding of the cognitive system, but also biotechnology far more advanced than what we have available today. IBM’s supercomputer stimulated over one billion artificial neurons that shared more than ten trillion synapses, or connections between neurons. At full power, the computer was able to perform functions about 83 times slower than a real cat’s brain is able to [9]. While it is somewhat impressive that this was able to be accomplished, we must remember that a cat’s brain is hundreds of times less complex than the average human brain, which has over 100 trillion synapses [10]. Additionally, IBM’s super computer model ran on about a million watts of electricity [9]. This is about 50,000 times more than the estimated power that a cat’s brain runs on; about 20 watts [10]. One might say that we are much closer in understanding than we are in capability to creating a functional model of a brain, but in both respects it is clear that we have a long way to go. Why Brain Systems Unique to Humans are Bad Places to StartAs stated before, the desire to understand how the brain handles memories is widespread due to that fact that it makes us human, and the same holds true for understanding our cognitive ability. What I mean by that is that no other species’ brain can perform those functions as effectively and complexly as ours can. When you combine the human brain’s extremely advanced cognitive ability with its complicated memory systems, you are left with the aptitude to systematically recall, analyze, and learn from memories. Because these attributes are so advanced and specific to humans, the memory and cognitive systems are a very bad place to start in reverse engineering of the brain. You cannot begin understanding the general qualities of a brain at the most complex species, much as you cannot begin learning Calculus in a Calculus 4 course. On top of this, what makes these brain systems, particularly memory, an even worse place to start in reverse engineering of the brain is the lack of an effective and ethical method to conduct research and gather information. If you can’t ethically collect information on a system of the brain in order to fully understand it, how are you meant to reverse-engineer that system?Advantages of Researching the Motor-Movement System and How it WorksAs mentioned in the introduction, a system such as the brain can only be reverse-engineered, modeled, and reproduced to the extent that the native system is understood in respect to localization function and the cellular mechanisms that enable that function. We have already ruled out human-specific brain systems on the basis that they are far too complex to start with, so we are now left with the motor-movement system. This brain system is shared between every single mammal on the planet, which is far from being human-specific. Any creature that can move has an active motor-movement system, and any creature with a heartbeat or breathing pattern has an autonomous one. Because animals’ brains are simpler than human brains, it is easier to isolate systems such as the motor-movement system and perform research and experiments on them. The complexity of our own brains and our lack of a general understanding of it prevents us from effectively isolating its systems. Animal’s brains, however, are much simpler than our own, and thus easier to isolate systems within. Therefore, it is much easier to understand the motor-system in a research animal’s brain, and then look for parallels in our own brain. We have already learned very much about the motor-movement system through experimentation on rats and monkeys, who are some of the more intelligent members of the animal kingdom [11]. Once again remembering our secondary requirement for our method of research to remain ethical, the ethicality of animal research will be discussed in a later section.The Hierarchal Motor CortexOne of the earliest and most significant things we have discovered about the motor-movement system of the brain is the idea of a hierarchal motor cortex, originally proposed by John Hughlings Jackson in 1882 [12]. The motor cortex, which is the motor-movement system’s primary hub, is a thin section spanning the top and sides of the brain. Jackson originally proposed the idea of a hierarchal motor cortex system after electrically stimulating different areas of it on a patient during surgery. As he did so, he observed as different parts of the patient’s body responded with myoclonic jerks. After Jackson’s initial observation, further experimentation was done on dogs to strengthen and reinforce and strengthen this theory [12]. As is illustrated by the figure below, larger sections of the motor cortex are dedicated to the muscle groups that we use most often and precisely, like the ones in our face and hands. Other less-precisely used muscle groups take up smaller amounts of space on the motor cortex. This demonstrates that the hierarchal system that Jackson proposed is correct.25146011938000PROFILE OF THE MOTOR CORTEXThis illustration of the left-brain motor cortex demonstrates the hierarchy of muscle groups proposed by Jackson [13].Current Progress in Reverse Engineering the Motor CortexAware of the hierarchal structure of the motor cortex, Dr. Andrew B. Schwartz, a neurobiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, with the help of his lab team, has successfully managed to reverse engineer the motor cortex of a monkey so that it may control a robotic arm using only its thoughts. Dr. Schwartz accomplished this by surgically implanting an electrode array comprised of 100 sensors into the area of the primates’ motor cortex that is dedicated to the arm and hand. This area can be located in the above figure. The electrode array was able to record action potentials from individual neurons in that area of the motor cortex to a brain-computer interface (BCI) as the monkeys used their arms and hands to do things like reaching, grabbing, and drawing [14], [15], [16]. Schwartz’s research over the last two decades has found there to be “a very good representation of the arm’s trajectory in the collective firing pattern of frontal cortical activity” [3]. Additionally, Schwartz found that the speed and strength of each movement could be predicted from how rapidly the neurons in the corresponding area of the motor cortex fired action potential signals [16]. Using this information, Schwartz and his team analyzed the data retrieved from the electrode arrays, and were then able to extract the movement-related signals that those recorded neurons relayed and apply them to controlling the mechanical arm [14], [15]. Once all of this was done, the monkey’s arms were restrained and the mechanical arm was placed before him, along with a marshmallow. The monkey quickly learned to control the arm to feed the marshmallow to himself by simply pretending the mechanical arm was his own. Because primate’s brains are more similar to human’s brains than any other animal’s, the same BCI method could theoretically be applied to us. When asked what the chances are of this, Schwartz replied, “We think a human could do much better!” [16]. BCI-based mind-controlled prosthetic limbs are now undergoing successful clinical trials for volunteer human participants. The surgery required to implant the electrode arrays into the brain is relatively non-invasive, as far as brain surgery goes, and greatly benefits the patient as it restores functionality to their limbs [14]. Therefore, this is an ethically sound procedure according to the NSPE and BMES codes of ethics regarding the health, safety, and interest of the public [5], [1].Moving Forward with Schwartz’s DataThe ability to record, isolate, and make use of brain signals through the BCI method opens many positive and rewarding possibilities. As previously mentioned, clinical trials of this technology are already helping restore natural movement to amputee victims by way of mind-controlled prosthetic limbs. Although this method is still not completely perfected and requires invasive surgery, the kinks will surely be worked out through additional research. Further development of the BCI method and understanding of how the brain’s motor cortex communicates with muscle groups could provide insight into how to restore natural limb functionality to victims of paralysis. The BCI method could also be applied to the tracking and translation of the signals that the motor cortex sends to the group of muscles involved in speech. Successfully doing so could allow people in vegetative states to communicate with those around them by simply imagining talking, and having the BCI interpret and translate the signals thus generated.On an even broader scale, the greater understanding of the brain’s communication methods with muscle groups that the BCI method would provide can lead to a much more profound understanding of how the brain communicates with itself. If we had this knowledge, we could then use it to analyze other systems of the brain. One of the great mysteries of memory and cognitive skills is how information is stored, recalled, and communicated throughout the brain. Using the knowledge of brain communication processes derived from the BCI method, we could solve this great mystery, giving ourselves the ability to prevent and cure neural diseases such as Alzheimer’s. We could also apply this knowledge to enhancing teaching methods to be more compatible with how our brain stores information. There are many advantages and rewards to be had for understanding and reverse engineering our own brains, and the path to doing so begins with Dr. Schwartz’s research and his BCI method.The Ethics Behind Animal ResearchThe use of animals for research and experimentation purposes in the laboratory setting is a highly controversial subject for lots of people and organizations, such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PETA’s statement on animal experimentation is this: “Right now, millions of mice, rats, rabbits, primates, cats, dogs, and other animals are locked inside cold, barren cages in laboratories across the country. They languish in pain, ache with loneliness, and long to roam free and use their minds. Instead, all they can do is sit and wait in fear of the next terrifying and painful procedure that will be performed on them.” [17]. Before I offer my counter-argument to PETA’s statement, let me first introduce the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 (AWA); this act is comprised of an ever-growing group of very strict laws concerning the treatment of animals in research environments, and is heavily enforced not only by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), but also by BMES’s code of ethics for engineers [4]. BMES’s code of ethics states that all biomedical engineers involved in research shall “comply with all legal, ethical, institutional, governmental, and other applicable research guidelines, respecting the rights of and exercising the responsibilities to human and animal subjects…” [5]. From this we can clearly see that animal research is a highly regulated process with strict standards and rules.Going back to PETA’s statement on animal experimentation, while still keeping in mind the AWA and its heavy enforcement by the USDA and BMES, it is clear that the statement contains a number of fallacies, the first of which is the description of the research environment [17]. PETA describes the animal’s cages as being cold, barren, and lonely, but this is not the case. Research laboratories are required by the AWA to provide all research animals with shelter at a comfortable temperature [4]. Loneliness is also not an issue because most animals are experimented on in groups in order to provide a control data set as well as verification that any experimental results can be reproduced. Therefore, loneliness is not a concern for the animals, they are constantly surrounded by one another, able to interact and form relationships. PETA goes on to say in their statement that research animals often languish in pain as a result of experimentation, but another requirement of the AWA is the use of anesthesia or other pain-relieving medication on animals under any type of experimentation that may otherwise cause them pain [4]. Rather than continuing to exaggerate the harshness of the animal research environment, the second half of PETA’s statement greatly dramatizes and personifies an animal’s mind. As humans, it is natural for us to imagine that other animals are able to think and feel in the same ways we do, but this is far from the truth; animals have relatively simple minds, and are unable to feel many of the emotions that we do. For example, most animals are not able to become bored in the same way that we do, no matter how much we would like to think so. Humans become bored when things do not meet their interests, but other animals, like rats, are not capable of having interests. What these animals do have is an inborn curiosity drive that compels them to seek small varieties, and if that drive is not satisfied, they become bored [18]. Because of this, a simple change in scenery every once in awhile will keep a rat or other animal’s boredom at bay, and therefor boredom should not be a concern to animal rights activists. In response to PETA’s mentioning of the animals’ longing to roam free, most research animals are born in the lab and do not even recognize the existence of the outside world. Therefore, they cannot miss it or desire to roam free in it, which makes PETA’s statement even more of an unrealistic and biased exaggeration.The AWA is just one of the many laws that regulate animal research to ensure that the animals are treated humanely and not put through excessive pain and torment, and these laws are enforced to the upmost extent in research laboratories in accordance with the USDA’s regulations and the BMES code of ethics [19][5]. Although I share PETA’s love for animals, it must be recognized and accepted by myself, the scientific community, and the critics thereof that animal research is necessary to achieving greater knowledge of our brains and theirs alike, and that the regulations set by the AWA are enough to keep it a humane practice.Cybernetic Revolts and Why they Won’t HappenUnlike the animal research argument, a cybernetic revolt, or robot apocalypse, is not a current issue, but rather a highly feared conceivable outcome of successfully reverse engineering the brain. As I mentioned in the introduction, a situation such as this has already been imagined for us by Hollywood in movies like Terminator and iRobot; where robots gain the ability to think and revolt, and use their ruthlessness, strength, and lack of emotion to attempt to exterminate the human race [6][20]. Although it is factual that if we were to successfully reverse engineer the brain, then we could theoretically give computers cognitive abilities, the claim of robot apocalypse is outlandish and unrealistic for many reasons. Additionally, raising a robot army would violate a variety of both federal laws and engineer’s codes of ethics.Difficulty of Exterminating the Human RaceLets break down exactly why a cybernetic revolt could never actually happen. First of all, robots do not naturally desire to kill people, as many Hollywood titles might suggest. In our current technological state, programmers must explicitly tell a computer to perform an action and how to go about doing so for it to be able to, so someone would have to tell a robot to kill someone for it to “desire” to do so. The argument and fear here is that once we grant robots the ability to think after figuring out how we do it, they will inevitably all decide that they would be better off killing us. For the robots to be successful in killing everyone, they would most likely require a very high population, and they would also need to be equipped with machine guns or something of a similarly lethal nature. Otherwise, the extermination of the human race simply could not be achieved. Wiping out the human race is not as easy as it seems, especially because we already have a large advantage with our population of seven billion and rising. Ethicality of Exterminating the Human RaceNow let me ask you, what type of principled scientist would build millions of untested prototype robots, grant them the ability to think, motivate them to kill, and equip them with lethal weaponry? Doing so would obviously violate many laws, as well as two main codes of engineer’s ethics: NSPE’s code and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineer’s (IEEE) code [1], [21]. Item number one of NSPE’s code states “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.” [1]. Obviously, if someone deliberately created an army of glorified killing machines, they’d be endangering the safety, health, and welfare of the public, which is a clear violation of this rule. Next we turn to the IEEE’s code of ethics, because even if the ability to create cognitive systems in a robot was made possible by a neural engineer, it would have to be executed by an electrical engineer. Items number one, two, and nine of the IEEE code of ethics are all very similar to the NSPE’s first rule, to avoid endangering of the public’s safety, causing injury to others, and creating conflicts of interest [21]. If someone created a robot army whose purpose was to kill me, it would definitely conflict with my interests, which primarily focus on not being ruthlessly murdered. Clearly, the act of creating a robotic army granting them the ability to wipe out the human race is morally and ethically objectionable.Difficulty of Raising a Robot ArmySuppose a particularly maniacal electrical engineer decided that they really don’t care about violating codes of ethics or federal law, and that they want to go ahead and create their robot army anyways. First of all, they’d need to have an enormous amount of capital to buy the materials and cover labor costs. Additionally, a project of this scale could not be effectively hidden from the government, who would surely and promptly put a stop to it. Raising a robot army simply cannot and will not be done by anyone, sane or crazed. Therefore, the robot apocalypse argument is not valid and has no place in preventing scientific advancement and the pursuit of reverse engineering of the brain.Educational Value of this AssignmentI’d like to step back from the subject of this paper for a moment and talk about the effectiveness of this assignment. Writing assignments two and three required me to invest lots of thought into what I’m really interested in. After all, the quality of my paper would inevitably be a clear reflection of how much I enjoyed writing it, so it would be in my best interest to choose a topic I enjoy a lot. After spending a lot of time thinking about it and weighing out my options, I decided that I had a great interest in the field of neural engineering and the objective of reverse engineering the brain to benefit mankind. Additionally, the requirement for me to incorporate various engineering codes of ethics into the paper forced me to educate myself on those codes, which provided a valuable insight into the moral guidelines and objectives of engineering. BMES’s code of conduct states that an engineer should “honor the responsibility… to train biomedical engineering students in proper professional conduct in performing research and publishing results….” [5]. In order to do so effectively, this much start at the beginning of an engineer’s college education, during their freshman year. It’s important for an engineering student to be provided the motivation and opportunity to really explore what field they’re interested in and what some recent accomplishments in that field are. Only after acquiring this information can you then develop an engineer’s mindset to look into the future of the field. Assignments two and three in combination with the entire engineering 0011 course provide this opportunity and motivation, and allow students to begin thinking about what they want to do in the rest of their time at the university. Further strengthening this point, a study done between over 4,000 undergraduate students at 18 separate engineering universities clearly related the students’ ethical development to their curricular and co-curricular activities [22]. The more a university’s engineering curriculum focuses on real world ethics, the greater the student’s ethical development will be, which will positively benefit them in the future as they graduate and enter the real world.As can be seen from this study as well as my own personal experience, these assignments have been extremely effective. They involve the writer’s own personal interests and opinions in addition to uniform codes of ethics, which helps develop the writer into the kind of engineer that they want to be while keeping them within ethical guidelines. I would certainly recommend that other institutions adopt this type of assignment for their freshman engineering programs if they have not already.Reinforcement of why the Motor Cortex is the Proper Starting PlaceTo successfully reverse engineer the entirety of the brain would be extremely fruitful to all of mankind for centuries to come. Diseases could be cured, those previously immobilized could have their bodies’ functionality restored, teaching and learning processes would be revolutionized to become far more effective, and the general quality of life could be raised. This feat, however, is far too large to be accomplished all at once. Instead, we must break it down and solve it piece-by-piece, using ethically sound methods of research and implementation, starting with the system we know most about: the motor-movement system. Not only have we already discovered much of how this system functions, we are also able to conduct research on it while following the NSPE and BMES codes of ethics [5], [1]. Dr. Schwartz and his lab team have already decoded a large amount of the signals that the brain sends to move limbs and have applied those signals to controlling prosthetics, demonstrating how realistic the goal of reverse-engineering the brain is and how closely within our reach it lies. Dr. Schwartz’s research and BCI method has already provided potential solutions for many of the issues we face today, and is being applied in ethically sound clinical trials to restore quality of life to amputee victims. Further development of the BCI method would yield an even more refined and accurate understanding of the motor-movement system, which we could use in order to better understand other brain systems. Eventually, through this procedure, we could reach a full understanding of the entire brain and apply it to solving many of our problems. The human race could make great advancements with the secrets of the brain’s functionality, and starting with the system we understand best is how to go about discovering them. Taking a step back once again, it is clear that this assignment has been effective in helping to push me in the direction I want to go in in regard to what type of engineering I will pursue. References[1] National Society of Professional Engineers. (2012). “NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers.” NSPE (Webpage). [2] L. Mastin. (2010). “Parts of the Brain.” Human Memory (Webpage). [3] A. B. Schwartz. (2012). “University of Pittsburgh MotorLab.” University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurobiology (Webpage). [4] USDA. (2012). “Animal Welfare Act.” USDA National Agriculture Library (Webpage). [5] Biomedical Engineering Society. (2012). “BMES Code of Ethics.” BMES (Webpage). [6] Wikipedia. (2012). “The Terminator.” Wikipedia: the Online Encyclopedia (Webpage). [7] A. Park. (10-5-2010). “Alzheimer’s Unlocked.” Time Vol. 176 Issue 17, p53-59 (Online Article). $AN=54463669&site=ehost-live[8] L. Mastin. (2010). “Types of Memory.” Human Memory (Webpage). [9] M. Golde. (June 2010). “Artificial Intelligence: The Brain-Computer Controversy. Strategic Business Insights (Online Article). [10] Wikipedia. (2012). “Cat Intelligence.” Wikipedia: the Online Encyclopedia (Webpage). [11] H. Davis. (1996). “Underestimating the Rat’s Intelligence.” National Center for Biotechnology Information (Webpage). [12] G. K. York, D. A. Steinberg. (2006). “An Introduction to the Life and Work of John Hughlings Jackson.” US National Library of Medicine (Online Article). [13] M. V. Kuyen. (2011). “Motor Cortex.” (Webpage). [14] J. Brown. (5-29-2008). “Monkeys Learn to Control Robotic Arm with Brainwaves.” PBS NEWSHOUR (Online Article). [15] A. B. Schwartz. (2012). “Andrew B. Schwartz Lab.” University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurobiology (Webpage). [16] CBS Interactive Inc. (November 2008). “The Monkey and the Robotic Arm.” CBS News (Video). [17] PETA. (2012). “Animals Used for Experimentation.” People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (Webpage). [18] Wikipedia. (2012). “What Causes Boredom?” Wikipedia: The Online Encyclopedia (Webpage). [19] Wikipedia. (2012). “Animal Testing Regulations.” Wikipedia: The Online Encyclopedia (Webpage). [20] Wikipedia. (2012). “Cybernetic Revolt.” Wikipedia: The Online Encyclopedia (Webpage). [21] IEEE. (2012). “IEEE Code of Ethics.” The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Webpage). [22] C. Finelli, M. Holsapple, E. Ra, et al. (2012). “An Assessment of Engineering Students’ ?Curricular and Co-Curricular Experiences ?and Their Ethical Development.” Journal of Engineering Education (Webpage). owe much of my thanks to my mother and father, both of whom are Neuroscience professors here at the University of Pittsburgh. Their knowledge of current happenings and progress in the neuroscience community helped to point me in the right direction for the best approach to reverse engineering the brain. I must also thank Dr. Andrew Schwartz for developing the BCI method and making his research so easily accessible to the scientific community. His research played a large role in my paper and greatly strengthened my argument. Dr. Newborg and the rest of the department were extremely helpful by sending out so many clarifications via email, so they also deserve my thanks. Hans Mattingly, my writing instructor, provided helpful feedback and criticism of assignment two, which allowed me to fix those issues for assignment three. Lastly, I’d like to thank my neighbor Matt P. and my group partner J. J. Petti for editing my paper. ................
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