Mr. Green, a successful venture capitalist in wireless communication, entered the famous Brainsterium.
He had developed a malignant brain tumor as confirmed by a non-excisional optical biopsy. His feelings were mixed. He had expected to undergo a gene therapy, but he was offered a classic tumor resection. His colleagues in life sciences invested heavily in gene therapy, so he expected to benefit out of it. He realized that none of them invested in image-guided surgery.
Thus, he felt that an obsolete technology would decide about his life. On the other hand, the Brainsterium had a brand name and an impeccable reputation to be the best.
His first impression upon entering the Brainsterium was surprisingly positive. He rather expected a terrible hospital smell, miserable patients being moved around, and a noisy crowd of visitors, as he had experienced while visiting a hospital the last time when his father had got a stroke.What he saw instead looked like a quiet high-tech lab. He headed towards the office of the chief neurosurgeon, Dr. Noki, who would explain to him the procedure and supervise the surgery. Supervise, not operate; this was the major difference that the Brainsterium offered to its patients.
‘‘It is you who decides what to keep in and what to remove from your brain. We just provide the right environment to do it’’ – started Dr. Noki.
Mr. Green looked surprised. Do-it-yourself neurosurgery? He had no idea about this market segment.
‘‘Your brain will be unlocked and you will be able to view its content, such as knowledge, skills
and memories, and examine how they are being invaded by the tumor’’ – continued Dr. Noki.
‘‘This surgery has two contradictory goals. One is to destroy all tumorous cells completely and the
other is to maximally preserve the functions of your brain. I will provide you with two extreme brain resection regions: the conservative region with the core tumor only, and the aggressive region that contains the core tumor along with all tumorous cells that have migrated away from it. You have to balance between them to plan your postoperative life. When all tumorous cells are completely removed, the chances of physical survival are higher. This is the best for your body, but not necessarily for your mind and career. Preserving maximally your brain functions sounds more attractive but it puts your life at a higher risk.’’
Mr. Green suddenly visualized his brain as a financial asset and things became clear. As the exclusive owner of his brain and its content, he himself wanted to have a full control over this asset and decide about the associated risk.
‘‘Someone’s brain is much more valuable than his bank account’’ – he thought, ‘‘so why for decades
has this been working differently?’’
He was more and more eager to understand this worth-investing technology. He once had run an R&D department before becoming a venture capitalist.
Dr. Noki provided more operational details. ‘‘You will be given access to our patients’ database and have permission to communicate with anyone who underwent this type of surgery. If you decide to proceed and accept our terms and conditions, you will be allowed to access all tutorials and simulators, and you can play back any previous surgery with, of course, no access to the brain contents of our patients.’’
‘‘In the next step’’– continued Dr. Noki –‘‘your brain will be unlocked by measuring its magnetic, electrical, chemical, and optical properties using a battery of techniques. They will produce the images of anatomy, vasculature, connectivity, function, pathology, and knowledge in your brain. If you are interested in technical details, refer to our tutorials. The extent of the tumor will be defined, and the conservative and aggressive resection regions prepared for you. You will be trained to understand the images employed to plan the resection. These images show tissue at the micron’s scale and at this resolution it is easy to distinguish normal from tumorous cells. The content of the resected brain region can be partly recovered. Your memories will be retrieved and saved on a disk. Play it later at home so that your brain will restore these memories in new locations. Remapping of the skills and knowledge is still at an experimental stage. At present, the content of the resected brain will be recorded and stored. We will acquire the knowledge distribution map of your brain later to find suitable locations for placing back the recovered content. There is a chance that some day, with the advancements in knowledge remapping and brain reconnection technologies, your skills and knowledge will be fully recovered. Finally, the tumor will be ablated with the collimated ultrasonic scalpel and removed without opening your skull. It will be dissolved and sucked out through the vasculature. All actions and operations will be controlled by our revolutionary surgical environment.’’ The introduction was over. Mr. Green was ready for this fascinating journey. He began it from the Resource Center ushered by a lion-robot. He was requested to put his fingers on the scanning plate and look into a camera to capture his biometrics. Mr. Green logged into the patients’ database and entered his personal wavelength. He had quite a broad band, which substantially accelerated operations.
First, he registered with the system and displayed the list of patients who underwent a similar procedure. There were several thousands of them. No mortality, no technical failure during surgery; neurological deficits were quite variable, however. Whom to ask? He entered his year and place of birth. There was a familiar name, Jack Case. They had been schoolmates in grade six before his family moved to the West Coast.
Mr. Green requested a videoconferencing session. He was lucky. Jack was in his garden and Mr. Green recognized his old friend. Jack had chosen the complete tumor removal 2 years back. He quit his job and was spending his days tendering his oceanside garden. Today Jack would opt differently. Mr. Green terminated the session and was led to the Brain Unlocking Center.
A pretty nurse with an east European accent welcomed him. He was asked to provide a detailed list of his skills and related knowledge. The questionnaire was quite boring but Mr. Green realized that it was critical for an accurate planning of his brain stimulation and knowledge mapping. Next, the nurse put a bulky helmet on his head. ‘‘This must be that famous BCC, Brainsterium’s collector and collimator – one of the key unfair advantages of the Brainsterium. How did they manage to design this three-in-one gadget able to acquire multi-modal data and to collimate myriad of energy sources dynamically providing a non-invasive access to any location in the brain at micron’s accuracy for stimulation and excision?’’ – wondered Mr. Green. While stimulated, he experienced unusual sensations.
He saw some strange visual effects, heard funny voices, smelled oriental plants, and had an impression
he was flying while the angels were singing. ‘‘No, not yet’’ – he said. ‘‘This is just a knowledge mapping procedure.’’ He looked at his body tightly attached to the chair. His excitement rocketed when he entered the Brain Exploration Center It resembled a cyber cafe he had used to visit with his son a long time ago. Patients with helmets sitting in cubicles appeared playing games and navigating through
some mazes. But everyone played seriously, as he could win or lose his past and future life.
Mr. Green entered a cubicle and touched the start button on the screen. A welcome message with his name appeared and a colorful image of his brain showed up. ‘‘It recognizes my biometrics’’ – he thought. Three available functions were displayed, ‘‘explore your brain,’’ ‘‘plan your surgery,’’ and ‘‘preserve your memories.’’
Mr. Green started with the first one. He was astonished with the ease he could navigate his brain and how the Cerefy Atlas was able to give him the name of any tiny structure along with description of its function. Mr. Green began to appreciate its potential. It was time to start doing the job.
He touched the second button. The nurse appeared and demonstrated how to distinguish on the images the normal from tumorous cells, and how to edit the resected region. It was quite easy with the Dextroscope stereoscopic display and a 3D reach-in, tactile user interface differentiating normal from pathological tissues. His hands reached into the brain space and worked as the tools reshaping the resected region. His future was really in his hands. He did not realize that he was the only person in the whole Brainsterium authorized to change the resection plan, as the system was monitoring the user’s
biometrics.
He started the inventory of his brain in the area of difference between the conservative and aggressive resection regions. Some skills were there that he might lose, such as climbing, driving, and playing the piano. He had given up his dream to climb K2 a long time ago. His personal driver was doing well so he would keep him. Playing the piano – no compromise.
He kept reshaping the region to be resected. The good-bye part of his brain was finally defined. Its knowledge and skills would be attempted to be recovered in a postoperative process. Now to memories and Mr. Green touched the last button. The button-called nurse appeared, put a BCC helmet on his head, and activated an array of transcranial magnetic stimulators.
‘‘I am lucky’’ – he thought – ‘‘she might have been a robot.’’
He projected his brain’s image, positioned the pointer within the region to be resected, and pressed the stimulation button. Nothing happened. He changed location and pressed the button again. Now he was watching the Titanic movie with his first love. He kept on pressing. It worked as a time machine moving him back to distant events and places. He could hardly believe that there were so many memories in such a small piece of tissue. Every memory he evoked was recorded. After the surgery, he would just play back any recorded piece to re-enter it into his brain.
The surgery plan was completed. He touched the submit button and was asked to confirm the plan and accept the legal statement. The session was terminated and he was invited for tea. The surgery would start in half an hour’s time. He loved this stuff. ‘‘I have got to subscribe to the Brainsterium Club, so I can come here every weekend for some brain surfing and unlocking’’ – he thought.
His new friend, the lion-robot ushered him to the Operating Rooms area. In this high-tech environment it looked so classic and trustworthy. Dr. Noki and the pretty nurse were already there.
Mr. Green laid down on the operating table, a BCC helmet was put on his head, and some monitoring probes attached to his body. ‘‘Are you ready?’’ – asked Dr. Noki and added – ‘‘Do not be afraid. Though the whole procedure is fully automatic, I will be controlling its every step.’’ Mr. Green pressed the start button initiating his own neurosurgery. The stereoscopic image of his brain was projected directly into his retinas and the resection plan prepared by him appeared. Initially, numerous sparkles surrounding the core tumor were visible. Later, he saw blood vessels feeding the core tumor being closed and the tumor separated from its surrounding tissues. Mr. Green felt an injection.
He noticed a wire going towards the tumor through the biggest blood vessel which remained still open. ‘‘This has to be a catheter’’ – he recalled. A magnetic system guided its tip automatically towards the tumor. The tip reached the tumor. A small balloon was inflated closing the vessel. The dissolved tumor tissues started disappearing fast. The space previously occupied by the core tumor kept on shrinking. Finally, the last blood vessel was closed. The surgery was over.
It was a long, eye-opening day for Mr. Green as a patient and investor. He had to stay overnight at the
Brainsterium under monitoring. Scanning was being performed automatically on continuous basis. Everything was normal as expected.
In the morning Mr. Green was discharged.
He went into Dr. Noki’s office and looked at him in a way that only a few multi-billionaires and CEOs deserved so far. ‘‘So far, so good’’ – Dr.Noki welcomed him. ‘‘We still have some work to do to recover the content of the resected part of your brain.
A disk was handed to Mr. Green. ‘‘My preserved memories’’ – he thought. Mr. Green was requested to keep on monitoring at home. He was given a wearable monitor capable of transmitting his scans from his home to the Brainsterium wirelessly. Finally he found some of his contribution.
He realized that despite many urgent messages, he made one call only asking his secretary to donate anonymously to the Brainsterium’s R&D Center. He sat at his old grand piano and started playing his favorite pieces. He was quite happy with his technical performance and got an impression that he played even with a greater passion than before. Now he knew what he was going to invest in.
No comments:
Post a Comment