Wirehead

:"For the Marvel Comics villain, see Wirehead (comics)."In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, a wirehead is someone who has been fitted with an electronic brain implant (called a "droud" in the stories) to stimulate the pleasure centers of their brain.

In 2006, The Guardian reported that trials of Deep brain stimulation with electric current, via wires inserted into the brain, had successfully lifted the mood of depression sufferers. [cite news | first= Alok | last= Jha| url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/mar/31/medicalresearch.neuroscience | title= When we turn the current on, the patients report the emptiness suddenly disappears | publisher=The Guardian | date= 2006-03-31] This is exactly the method used by wireheads in the earlier Niven stories (such as the 'Gil the Arm' story "Death By Ectasy").

In the Shaper/Mechanist stories of Bruce Sterling, "wirehead" is the Mechanist term for a human who has given up corporeal existence and become an infomorph.

In 2007 a band formed by Clive Edwards took the name WireHead.

See also

*Drug addiction
*Tasp
*Mindkiller Novel by Spider Robinson

References