Making the fastest Human,
i have had a question i'd like to pose some of you on this forum here, how would we go about making the fastest human possible? i don't mean attaching a human onto a get or anything but more so how would you make them faster genetically/chemically (through drug enhancement)/mechanically (implants/other)?
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In short, a very tricky, risky modification of the pre-existing system. Very likely that you'll do something horrible like tear a great many muscles, kick a hole in something while you're adjusting to the effects of the compounds, stop your heart. The usual business.
Myostatin inhibition might be useful for this, if you take the genetics root.
Well what about action potentials? Can we increase the amount of voltage gated channels or play with the myelin sheath to increase saltatory conduction? Maybe.. worth looking at anyhow but I can't think of anything off hand. I mean, not with a great enough effect that it would be meaningful.
There might be ways to increase the likelihood of firing at the neuromuscular junction. Once again an ach esterase inhibitor comes to mind. Of course, uncontrolled muscle cramping might occur instead. We are talking about the same thing serin gas does.
There might be something we could do to enhance how calcium is used and release during the cross bridge cycle. The mechanism of ca release from sarcoplasmic reticulum is well understood. Would a bigger diffusion gradient increase calcium moving to the myosin sites? How about more calcium gates?
How about adding gap junctions between striated muscle fibers? Make each muscle all or none? Huge full muscle recruitment at the expense of fine motor control.
Overall, this is what I think.. we don't see any animals using muscles alone to move significantly faster than we can. You might look into specialized structure s like the appendage on a spring tail etc. But speed is such an enormous advantage that species would most likely have evolved already if there is an easy biological solution. If you figure out an answer, you most likely also be answering how we can speed up the cns which is really a far more impressive grind.
My point however is that a nervous system interface to electronics really is step one.
In terms of bci interfacing for something like this.. you have the equivalent of a digital cerebellum. The cerebellum functions to control the specifics of movement. The frontal lobe and other structures just kind of determine when to activate a programmed sequence. This is why leaving to drive takes effort.. but after a while it's a pre programmed sequence like shoe laces.
You d have a program moving a structure like contract muscle to shorten the angle of joint 30 degree s. You'd simply think go over there.. much how it works now.
I agree that the cns is a rather complicated web of connections. The pns on the other hand is somewhat straight forward. Efferent and afferent signals are as uni directional as wires and easily mapped. Usually you only have a couple neurons involved really.. brain to spinal, spinal to target.. or sensory neuron to spine, spine to brain. It's more complicated than this with glial cells and spinal reflexes etc. But not too bad.
Because the "putting the brain with its life support machine in a car and hook up the controls with bci" would work. Though how's that much different from me getting in a car and drive it I have no idea, unless you define your body as simply just something that interfaces with your nervous system directly.
It's just the same old question: does that count as an extension of your body?
If you take a thread to a silly direction, it will go to a silly direction.