The big bang called NeuroTech

Neuro Technology will be major breakthrough technology which will help treat effectively more than 1.5 billion patients affected by various brain ailments.

Speaking on Lab2 market Showcase, at the EmTech India 2009, MIT media Labs' Synthetic Neurobiology, Vinay Gidwaney, Associate at MIT, said Neuro Technology has a great potential to help cure some diseases like Parkinson (25 million), Schizophrenia (2 million) Alzheimer's (90 million) epilepsy (50 million) which has affected a huge chunk of the world population.

Explaining how this technology treats patients, Gidwaney said currently Neurotech provides two treatments; either by treating the brain from outside (EEG, FMRI, FMS) or by deep brain simulation method which entails embedding electrodes right inside the brain.

He said at present MIT was working on software which literally switches off the brain on the directions of the doctors.

"The program can turn off and on the various sections of the brain depending on the ailment the patient suffers. Suppose the patient suffers from obesity or drug addiction, we can shut down those areas using this technology so that the patient doesn't have the cravings for excess food or drugs for that matter," said Gidwaney.

Gidwaney also showed a unique experiment they had conducted in the US, where one group of children affected with cancer was asked to play a game of virtual killing cancercells and others were not.

The results, said Gidwaney, were surprising as they saw 20 per cent recovery in patients who had played the game.

"This means other than radiations, chemotherapy treatments,  brain also played a role in treating the body. We are looking and understanding in detail the power of brain in controlling the body."

Gidwaney concluded by saying that India can be a leader in this field as the country has great skill set in software development and spirituality.