Ultrathin Silk-Based Brain Implants

hatboyzero writes "University of Pennsylvania engineers have designed silk-based electronics that can stick to the surface of the brain, allowing for better brain-computer interfaces. The researchers say the silk-based devices are thin and flexible enough to reach previously inaccessible areas of the brain."

Comments

Next steps, please

[Thanshin]

Ok. I've got the guy's brain in the silk bag, how do I set up the interface now?

Re:Next steps, please

[idji]

it's really often very scary what gets tagged informative or funny on slashdot.

Oblig XKCD

[rachit]

http://xkcd.com/644/

Re:What can we access from the brain surface?

[Hurricane78]

Luckily it doesn’t matter much. It’s not about what we can access. (There is a much better interface to that, called speech! ;)
It’s about plain interfacing. With feedback. And in that matter, the brain can without any trouble reconfigure itself (=training/learning) to do whatever you want.
It’s what you do all day long anyway.

Remember those experiments where they stuck a couple of wires in a monkey’s head, and he “magically” learned to use them to control a robotic arm... in addition to his other limbs!
That’s what I mean.

If you know how a (really any) dynamic neural net works, it’s obvious. (But it gets harder with old age. Though I think there are drugs that can partially undo it. But you don’t want to mess with those, since it’s the same thing as forgetting old habits... and you may find yourself forgetting someone or how to do something important.)

I have no doubt, that you can train yourself to send any patterns of signals over those wires. And sense anything that’s coming in As long as they are below your brain’s maximum resolution (in time and space) and in the proper voltage/current range.