Wirehead

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.

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On the 31st of March 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper reported that trials of Deep brain stimulation with electric current, via wires inserted into the brain, had successfully lifted the mood of depression sufferers. 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.

See also

• Tasp
• Mindkiller Novel by Spider Robinson