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Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Electric Brain,” with R. Douglas Fields, professor in the University of Maryland’s Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program and author of Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better.
Research on brainwaves is transforming how neuroscientists believe the brain works and revolutionizing our future by linking the human mind to computers. Yet few members of the public understand brain waves, which have been mysterious and controversial since their discovery in the 1920s by a reclusive German psychiatrist who measured electromagnetic energy radiating out of the brains of his patients in a mental hospital.
Come gain a thorough understanding of the electric currents in our heads and the potential they hold with the help of R. Douglas Fields, a world-renowned neuroscientist and author of the award-winning book Electric Brain and of The Other Brain, and Why We Snap. He’ll discuss both the history, and future, of brainwave manipulation.
You’ll learn how these bioelectric broadcasts expose our conscious and unconscious mental activity, emotions, innate cognitive abilities, and psychological and neurological disorders. Dr. Fields also will discuss how cognitive performance, mood, mental and neurological health all can be improved by manipulating brainwaves. The methods for doing so include neurofeedback or the beaming electrical or magnetic stimulation through the scalp and or via electrodes implanted in the brain.
We’ll also look at how brainwaves can transmit information directly between two brains. They also can control machines such as prosthetic limbs and fighter drones, offering the potential to enable both tremendous good and great harm. You’ll find the whole discussion electrifying. (Advance tickets: $12. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in. Please also bring proof of Covid vaccination and be prepared to wear a mask except while seated and eating or drinking, as Profs and Pints will require both if necessary in response to local infection rates.)
Image from the cover of Electric Brain, by R. Douglas Fields.
