Slashdot Mirror
Brain-Computer Interface Still Going After 1,000 Days
An anonymous reader writes "Remember BrainGate? The implanted system lets people with paralysis control computer cursors and other devices just by thinking about moving them with their hand. A new report shows that it is still going strong in a patient 1,000 days past her implant."
http://xkcd.com/644/
The last time I saw a presentation on brain interface technology was almost a year ago, so I'm not 100% current either, but the current state of the art isn't that great.
The fundamental problem is that the brain/hardware interface breaks down with time. In simple terms, it looks like the extremely soft brain tissue doesn't stand up to being in hard contact with the rigid electrodes (there's a nice picture in the article: they look like meat tenderizers). In the long run, there is formation of a buffer zone of unusable tissue between viable brain matter and the electrodes which blocks the signal. This is an area of substantial research: trying to build nanomaterials that serve as a good physical buffer between the brain and electrode, which is a non-trivial problem. Success in this goal can directly lead to longer-lived devices.
So when they say
no evidence has emerged of any fundamental incompatibility between the sensor and the brain
that's not entirely honest. Yes, their sensor still works fine but they still need to adapt it to be more brain-compatible. My personal guess is that this one patient just happens to have a lucky brain composition/response.