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Ali Pourahmad's Inventions | Category: New inventions in the world | Related: Scientific discoveries and technological inventions
A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food!
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
◉ Introduction and objectives:
In this article, we will briefly explain how to create an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food.
The initial idea to create this device was formed in my mind in 2009 after reading the book The Brain That Changes Itself (2007) by psychoanalyst Norman Doidge. In this book, Norman Doidge had explained the flexibility of brain neurons to change and correct the path of nerve impulses. Given my long-standing and great interest in exploring the mysterious structure of the smallest components of the brain, at the encouragement and suggestion of Dr. Masoud Shafiei (one of my close friends) who was a professor at the Medical University in Hungary in 2009, I began to study a wide range of medical books to continue my medical studies at that university, but ultimately, after 7 months, I gave up this decision due to family obligations along with responsibilities at the airline. However, this interest has not diminished to this day and I have continued to study the mysterious structure of the brain at every opportunity.
Continuously studying various specialized medical books during those years led me to create various scientific ideas, while increasing my knowledge of this endless and amazing realm. One of them was the possibility of creating a device to create an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting any food. In fact, my idea was a more specific form of using the Optogenetics technique to completely control the taste system of the brain. Two years later, I presented my idea in the script of the science fiction film Towards the Future, produced by the Da Yamms company in Hollywood in 2012, which I will explain in the technical description section of this article how this device works.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
Before explaining the technical details, it is necessary to have an overview of the meaning of optogenetics in medicine. The word optogenetics refers to the combination of the simultaneous use of optics and genetics to stimulate light-sensitive nerve cells and monitor their function. Using optogenetics, optical and genetic methods are combined to achieve unprecedented spatial and temporal targeting precision for monitoring and controlling the function of a single neuron. Using this technology, it is possible to selectively manipulate a large set of specific nerve cells, and we can make very specific changes to the target cells using very subtle and precise electrical pulses, which will significantly affect the complex neural circuits in the brain. In the therapeutic sector, this technique could be an important factor in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and loss of neuronal selectivity leading to dysfunction of the nervous system, due to the absolute focus of optogenetics on the functional activity of brain neurons.
This excitability of some neurons in the brain to light, made me think that if it is possible to repair poorly functioning neural circuits using optogenetic techniques, then it is also possible that this technique can be used to neutralize or activate and completely control the taste part of the brain. In other words, by stimulating the light-sensitive part of the nerve cells in the ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus, and without using the pulses received by the neurons through the binding of chemical molecules of food to the plasma membrane protein of the Gustatory Cortex cells, we will be able to achieve an artificial sense of taste in the brain. Although this idea was later tested on laboratory mice, but it has not yet been used on humans for various reasons.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
One of the factors that led to the creation of this idea in my mind was the inherent connection of human need, habit and interest with the signals of pleasant taste experience such as saltiness or sweetness. For example, given the essential need of the body's cells for a controlled and specific amount of glucose (sugars as one of the most important sources of energy production), the mesolimbic dopamine system in the brain is activated if we eating glucose-containing foods, it creates a sense of pleasure and increases the need to eating sweet and sugary foods again. The mesolimbic neural pathway increases the sense of reward, desire, and emotions in the brain. When we eat sugary foods, dopamine is transmitted from the ventral tegmentum (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and hippocampus. By activating the reward system, it increases the need to eat sugary or salty foods again.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
Such an increase in interest in eating sweet foods leads to serious risks in people whose insulin secretion in their blood is less than the amount necessary to maintain normal blood sugar (Diabetes Mellitus patients). This also happens to those with high blood pressure because water retention is caused by sodium due to eating too much salty foods which leads to increased blood volume and increased blood pressure, as one of the main factors of stroke. On the other hand, avoiding eating sweet or salty foods requires strong willpower, constant mental practice, and special care and this ability is not the same for all people.
In such a situation, using an artificial taste device for this group of people could be an alternative solution for tasting a variety of flavors to prevent the occurrence of diseases related to eating sugary or salty foods. In addition, by controlling the excitability of the ventral posterior-medial nucleus of the thalamus, the required and appropriate amount of taste sensation of various tastes can be artificially simulated in the gustatory cortex, without the food being tasted by the lingual papillae and entering the bloodstream.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
Imagine that instead of conventional drug therapy using chemical pills, we could simply treat diseases with light beams from within the brain. In fact, this is not as far-fetched as we think, because in recent years we have witnessed a great development of light-based bioelectronic technology and I hope that such ideas reach the therapeutic use stage as soon as possible so that further development can be carried out in its functional scope.
◉ Technical description of the invention:
First, we need to look at the different parts of the brain that are directly or indirectly involved in the functioning of the Gustatory Cortex system. In general, the brain is divided into the Cerebrum, the Brainstem, and the Cerebellum. The cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, is located in the front of the brain and consists of the gray matter of the cerebral cortex and the white matter in its center. This part of the brain, while regulating temperature, initiates the movement of signals related to the senses of sight, hearing, and touch, and coordinates and establishes the connection between the functions of speech, judgment, thinking and reasoning, problem solving, the expression of emotions, and the ability to learn.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
The brainstem consists of the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla, which connects the cerebrum to the spinal cord. The midbrain or mesencephalon has a very complex structure that, with a wide range of different neuronal clusters, various neural pathways and dopamine neurons located in the substantia nigra, allows for various functions such as hearing and movement to calculate appropriate answers to questions. The pons is the origin of 4 of the 12 cranial nerves that enable activities such as the production of tears, chewing, blinking, focusing vision, balance, hearing, and facial expressions. The medulla oblongata is located at the base of the brainstem, where the brain connects to the spinal cord. It regulates many of the body's functions, such as heart rate, breathing patterns, blood flow, and oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood. The spinal cord extends from the base of the medulla oblongata through a large hole in the bottom of the skull to the rest of the body that is the interface for sending signals to the brain and vice versa. The cerebellum is a small part of the brain located at the back of the skull, below the temporal lobes and above the brainstem, and has two hemispheres. The outer part contains neurons and the inner area is where the brain communicates with the cerebral cortex to enable various functions such as voluntary muscle movements or maintaining body balance.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
According to the computer simulation shown in the video at the end of this article, the part of the brain most relevant to the idea of creating an artificial sense of taste is the diencephalon. The diencephalon is located deep under the brain and is the site of formation of the walls of the third ventricle of the brain. The three main regions of the diencephalon are the thalamus, hypothalamus, and epithalamus. Each of them has its own distinct functions but among them, the thalamus plays the most important role in completing the process of taste sensation because the range of taste neurons extends from the taste cells in the tongue, esophagus, and palate to the medulla in the brainstem, then to the thalamus, and finally to the gustatory cortex. Although taste information is separated and categorized into different signals as it started to move from different areas of the tongue and then through the three regions of the medulla oblongata, thalamus, and cerebral cortex, but the thalamus is the main processor of this data before sending it to the gustatory cortex. The main function of the gustatory cortex is to process basic tastes such as sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, and umami, which are activated by receiving signals from taste receptors on the tongue and other parts of the mouth.
The information path after receiving the tongue nerve receptors goes to the petrosal and geniculate ganglion in the anterior third of the facial nerve ganglion and then it enters the main sensory nucleus in the dorsal root ganglion Nucleus of the solitary tract. These signals are separated in each of these areas and then enter the Ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus to process and create the main data for the sense of taste and finally after processing, goes to the Gustatory Cortex and creates the sensation of different tastes. In fact, the beginning of my old idea occurs in the Ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus, where instead of receiving smooth signals from the tongue, we should put subtle artificial electrical signals to simulate the same natural function for the posterior medial nucleus of the thalamus. In other words, any signal that exits the medial posterior excitatory region of the thalamus is recognized as specific data of different tastes by the gustatory cortex, and it creates a sensory response to tastes in the brain.
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To achieve this, I again turned to optogenetic techniques to activate the cells responsible for generating data for different tastes. These cells are located in the ventral mid-dorsal nucleus of the thalamus, which are capable of generating and processing information for the production of different tastes by having light-sensitive proteins within them. These light-sensitive proteins are responsive in several categories, for example, important parts of them include light-responsive ion channels, light-responsive G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), light-responsive protein to protein interaction domains, and light-responsive cage groups. In the ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus, there are impulse-generating cells for the gustatory cortex, which allow the replacement of signals sent from the dorsal root ganglion with signals generated by the stimulation of proteins sensitive to blue or ultraviolet wavelengths of light.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
In other words, by shining a controlled, penetrating wavelength of blue or magnetic ultraviolet light into the posterior-middle nucleus of the thalamus, proteins attached to the cells of neurons in this area are stimulated and send a subtle electrical pulse to activate the gustatory cortex. These pulses contain data related to the creation of tastes in proportion to the target area of the cell mass in the thalamus. In other words, each part of the cell mass in the thalamus determines the creation of a specific type of taste sensation and, upon excitation, sends specific information to the gustatory cortex and the perception of tastes.
With this method, we can selectively activate sweet or bitter cortical fields, and this is possible by injecting harmless viruses carrying the gene for a light-sensitive protein into the thalamus because the neurons that receive this gene and produce the protein will be able to respond to the wavelength and color of the light source.
◉ Invention: A device that creates an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food
◉ Inventor and Patent Owner: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Category: New inventions by inventors in the world
At the end of this short article, I should point out that the perception of taste from food is not directly and exclusively related to the amount of their input on the tongue and inside the mouth, because it is the taste receptors of the brain that perceive chemicals and produce various tastes. we will never be able to perceive the sense of taste and recognize it despite eating a large amount of food, if we deactivate the thalamus region and cut off its connection with the medulla oblongata, the posterior medial nucleus, and the gustatory cortex. The opposite is also true, that is, if we activate the aforementioned area in the thalamus by targeting the sense of taste with magnetic light radiation or internal optical fibers, we will be able to fully perceive and understand various tastes in our sense of taste, despite not eating or tasting any food.
End of article//
◉ Video of Creating an artificial sense of taste in the brain without tasting food / Category: Inventions by Ali Pourahmad
◉ Animation creator of this video: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Music composer of this video: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Narrator: Ali Pourahmad
◉ Language: English
◉ Subtitles: None
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