title: Brain stimulation to treat mental illness and enhance human learning, creativity, performance, altruism, and defenses against suffering.
abstract: Any mental/emotional state or process (MESP) which is considered highly desirable (e.g., sustained concentration, memorization of important facts, empathy) or undesirable (e.g., paranoid delusionalism, delirium) could be, respectively, facilitated or deterred by means of an external (i.e., extracranial, or at least extracerebral, and extracorporal) brain stimulation circuit designed in such a way as to deliver rewarding stimulation as often and only as often as and for as long and only for as long as an electroencephalographic or other kind of brain function characteristic, which uniquely identifies the occurrence of the MESP in question, were being emitted by the individual's (i.e., the subject's) brain, with the intensity of the stimulation at every point in time being proportional, respectively, to the simultaneous magnitude or to the reciprocal of the simultaneous magnitude of the MESP-identifying characteristic. Approaches a and b are generalized examples of a number of hypothetical stimulation paradigms presented below that might be used to treat mental illness, enhance learning, etc. (as in the title). Explanations of the psychodynamic mechanisms whereby these paradigms might exert their intended effects are given in most cases.
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials; D000533:Altruism; D001007:Anxiety / Q000628:therapy; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D003405:Creativity; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004599:Electric Stimulation Therapy; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy