Cogware

What is it about brain prostheses and rats? Theodore Berger of USC has spent a decade working on a brain implant for rats that will replace the synaptic connection between sections CA1 and CA3 of the hippocampus, which will be very useful indeed for restoring long-term memory to rats who have suffered selective injuries to the temporal lobe. He now has software that may not be implantable but works as long as the brain-damaged rat remains within a cable-length of the mainframe.

Berger's system also holds out the prospect of improved quality-of-life for laminated slices of mouse brain. This is only fair given the use of robotic rats as prosthetic right hemispheres, as documented in Rudy Rucker's memoirs:
Nevertheless, here at Riddled Research Laboratories we are not convinced that electronics are the way to go. For my own prosthetic temporal lobes -- who could possibly have predicted that the GABA-receptor pathways in the fusiform gyrus would prove to be so vulnerable to datura liqueur in large amounts! -- I intend to stick to a mature technology platform. Like clockwork.


Admittedly there were some teething problems in the early experiments with clockwork temporal lobes, as shown here where the test subjects are not displaying what is known in the business as "appropriate affect". It may be that the weights for the escapement mechanism need to be heavier. For feck's sake, it's a funeral; if they can muster no expression other than a vacant simper then the rehabilitation program is not looking good and there is little prospect of careers and independent lives unless they marry Republican politicians.

Also what is Subject 3 planning to do with those tongs?