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Just as it is possible to go to work out one’s body in the gym, it is also possible to buy computer software to work out one’s brain. Software programs now on the market include Nintendo’s “Brain Age” and Posit Science’s Brain Fitness Programs. Indeed, consulting firm Sharpbrains reports that the market for these products more than doubled between 2005 and 2007 to US$225 million, and health insurers like Humana are offering brain fitness programs to Medicare members at a discounted price.

Such programs won’t cure Alzheimer’s, of course, but other members of the tech community are working on projects that might help scientists beat the disease. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s Allen Institute for Brain Science mapped an entire mouse brain in 2006, detailing more than 21,000 genes at the cellular level. This provided scientists — free of charge — with a level of data previously unavailable. Allen researchers will conduct additional work charting gene activity in the developing mouse brain, and last week the company announced that they are working on mapping the human brain.

“This new atlas holds promise for furthering understanding of human developmental disorders such as autism and other age-associated conditions including schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, it is likely to uncover new opportunities for therapeutic intervention, as genes that are important for healthy brain development and maintenance may be helpful in slowing progress of degenerative diseases … and repairing brain tissue already damaged by injury or disease,” according to the Institute.

A leader from the tech community is driving the brain mapping project, and that should come as no surprise. It’s taken for granted in computer science that if you want to learn how something operates, mapping and reverse engineering is helpful. Allen’s brain project is looking to apply those methods to the human operating system. However, not all brain-driven tech is looking to fix a disease. Some are striving to make it easier to cope with disability.

For instance, Michael Callahan of Ambient recently demonstrated a device called “Audeo” that allows voiceless telephone calls. Although originally designed to allow people with disabilities to express their thoughts, someday soon everyone could have the ability to chat on the phone using a device that turns one’s thoughts into speech. This would be a blessing for those assailed by other people’s conversations, but it may bring up new privacy issues that make today’s battles look like child’s play. And the advances don’t end with speech.

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“Jones and his colleagues will take about a half dozen brains from recently dead people who were neurologically and psychiatrically healthy. Then they’ll divide each brain into somewhere between 500 and 2000 regions, and look at what genes were turned on in each region. (Geeky bonus: They’ll do this by looking for mRNA, the genetic material that turns genes into proteins.) About 100,000 different proteins are expressed in the brain, Allen said.”

An equally cool new tech is electronic skin. Also from MIT’s Review:

A postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, “fabricated thin gold strips on elastic rubber substrates that could be stretched like a rubber band without losing electrical conductivity. The Princeton group, led by electrical-engineering professor Sigurd Wagner, then used these strips as the foundation of the first stretchable integrated circuit.”

“We think this is important, because that’s what now happens in nature. The pony lives longer than the horse, the small dog lives longer than a large dog. Apparently, it’s true for humans also.”

I guess if you’re a tall person, you might have reason to be worried…

Groups like the World Privacy Forum worry that initiatives like Google’s might threaten privacy because tech companies “are not subject to the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) health privacy rule.” This is interesting given that the WPF also seems to have a number of complaints against HIPAA, and many experts on HIPAA agree that the law is more about the portability of medical data than about privacy.

HIPAA benefits the government and big business at the expense of consumers, according to consumer advocates like Sue Blevins at the Institute for Health Freedom. “HIPAA takes power away from individuals and gives the decision to the government as to who can access your data.”

As most people know by now, when you sign the HIPAA consent form at the doctor’s office, it isn’t so that you can make a decision about who gets your data, because that’s already decided by law. Rather, the purpose of the consent form is to enable doctors to prove they notified you, and that your data can be shared and used. That’s a pretty perverse idea of privacy, but should any of us be surprised? The government almost always does a bad job at responding to consumer needs and managing information. Those tempted to disagree might recall their last encounter with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“That’s the reason concierge medicine is taking off,” says San Francisco-based private doctor Jordan Shlain. “There’s no consumer brand like Starbucks for healthcare yet.”

A recent study by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions showed that 88 percent of those surveyed want to manage their health data online. Yet despite this demand, rules that create perverse incentives stymie the current system in which most people operate.

Government-driven systems fail at creating a good user experience, not because government is inherently bad, but because there’s no incentive to be responsive. Consider for a moment the consequences of a privacy breech under the government’s HIPAA system versus those under a market-based Google or Microsoft-led system. (Microsoft launched HealthVault last year).

If your data were stolen or sold by someone operating under HIPAA, you would have to file a case with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If, after much deliberation, officials determined that your claim was real, the person who violated your privacy would have to pay a fine to the government. You would get nothing, as there is no private right of action under HIPAA. So, under HIPAA, the federal government actually makes money when your rights are violated.

Now think about what would happen if someone breeched the security systems of Google or Microsoft. First, there would be a massive amount of media coverage. The companies would be under immense public pressure to fix whatever happened within hours — not the days, weeks or months that a government committee would take. You would demand action now, and if the violation was contrary to their stated privacy policy, you could sue them and be paid the damages.

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For instance, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has spent more than US$4 million lobbying to convince regulators that the XM-Sirius deal would create a radio monopoly. That’s like arguing that the Kindle, Amazon’s new wireless reading device, is a monopoly because it is the only e-book reading device that can download books using EVDO (evolution-data optimized) technology so the user can read them immediately. Yet neither new way of enjoying books or radio excludes all others.

NAB’s claims don’t hold up to scrutiny, especially when they try to have it both ways. As the Pacific Research Institute’s Daniel Ballon has pointed out, “the NAB concocted an absurd notion of competition” with its statement that “Sirius and XM compete directly with us, but we don’t compete directly with them.” George Orwell savaged that kind of logic in his novels, and it does not belong in the debate halls of the most powerful nation in the world.

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