Traditionally, noise has been viewed as a detriment to signal detection and information transmission. We discuss how from a bioengineering standpoint, this work suggests that it may be possible to develop a noise-based technique for lowering sensory detection thresholds in humans. Such a technique could be applied to healthy individuals and used in situations which require fine motor control. From a clinical standpoint, a technique of this sort could be particularly relevant for individuals with elevated sensory thresholds, such as older adults and patients with peripheral neuropathy. The question of whether static magnetic fields affect biological systems has been the subject of many investigations.
Results often seem contradictory.
It is likely that the inherently weak forces and torques that magnetic fields can exert on the diamagnetic features in cells leads to effects that are very sensitive to cell size and to the orientation or timing of the applied magnetic field. With this in mind, we have performed investigations of the response of embryos of the frog, Xenopus laevis, to strong static magnetic fields. These embryos are relatively large and they assume a unique orientation in the presence of gravity. I will describe how we have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve Magnetic Field Gradient Levitation of the embryos, i.e. exert forces comparable to gravity, using existing high magnetic field solenoids. I will compare the levitated state to an ideal low gravity state and discuss how large inhomogeneous magnetic fields might be used to probe gravitationally sensitive phenomena in biological specimens.