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Matrix-Style Brain Interface Closer To Reality
atkulp writes "According to this Wired article, a private company, Cyberkinetics is seeking permission from the FDA to test a product called BrainGate that implants in the brain and can control actions on a computer. So far it works for monkeys and they'd like to see it as viable for quadriplegics and others in need. How soon until anyone can become the ultimate expansion card? Sign me up!"
This would enable handicap people to control machines, not vice-versa. It would be killer for fighter pilots though...
sign me up as well! i have wondered though when they seriously would start implementing computer based implants in our brains. it actually seems quite logical as a "next step" sorta thing. i remember when me and friends used to joke that one day we'd be able to add extra memory (RAM) to our brains. watch this have DRM on it! (lol)
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
So let's see. First, we connect our brains to the computer. Then we create Internet 3, by directly linking our brains. Then a new anti-terrorism bill outlaws firewalls, and our brains will be wide open to each other. Can anybody say "collective consciousness"?
Yep. John Donoghue (of Brown) has been working on this stuff for a few years, and his former postdoc, implant engineer Nikos Hatsopoulos is another key person at Cyberkinetics. But this is really Donoghue's baby.
They've adopted the Richard Normann's (of Bionic Tech) implants (the Utah grid), and they are working fairly well for time periods up to a year. You can expect them to be the first to do human studies, and for quite a lot to be learned about the brain in the process, as well as dramatic improvements in the lives of their test patients.
I'm quite excited to see how it goes for them, and hope for the best.
While I laud the effort, it will be a long time before this becomes a proper human interface. Take computer voice recognition... it's still in it's infancy despite years of 'progress'. The issues at hand:
i) How long it takes the computer to learn how to interpret the signals and what they relate to(its training).
ii) The training involved for the human to keep a 'steady mind'. How does the system bypass clutter?
If those two issues are resolved or mitigated, this is a cool prospect.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
I work with spinal cord injured individuals. One patient in particular is a "locked-in" quadraplegic. What this means is that, in addition to not being able to move anything from his neck down (he is on a ventilator), he cannot speak. Because of a surgery complication, he bled into his lower brainstem, preventing any sort of muscular control of his mouth. It has also left him with a significant astigmatism and eye spasms preventing him from looking in one direction or controlling his eye gaze for any length of time (even short lengths of time like a few secs).
So in addition to being completely paralyzed, he can't speak and can't use any eye gaze adaptive devices. He can't use his mouth for tongue depressed switches, and because of facial muscle spasms, even EMG biofeedback has been ruled-out. He is a very rare patient (condition wise) but this is the kind of technology that would really be appropriate/needed for a patient with his level of disability. So gloom and doom matrix/personal privacy issues aside, these kinds of technology can be of paramount importance to paralyzed individuals.
And for those wondering, he communicates using an upward eye gaze and memorized letterboard.
1 a b c d e
2 f g h i j
3 k l m n o
4 p q r s t
5 u v w x y z
You basically go, "line 1, line 2, line 3,..." etc until he looks up (for "yes"). You then move across the correct row until he looks up to designate the letter. In this way, he can spell his way through communication. I once joked with him its like Wheel of Fortune meets Jeopardy on steroids. Cumbersome, but its the only way, and you can get surprisingly good at it with practice.
jeff