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'Neural Bypass' Links Brain To Hand To Get Around Paralysis (ieee.org)
An anonymous reader writes: People who are paralyzed from a spinal cord injury still generate movement commands in their brains, but those commands can't travel down their spinal cords and peripheral nerves to reach their muscles. So biomedical engineers came up with a "neural bypass" to route brain signals around the roadblock. The system has just been demonstrated by a human patient for the first time. The patient has a brain implant to record signals from his motor cortex which are sent to a computer, where a decoder algorithm figures out which signals correspond to which specific imagined movements. It then sends a command to a sleeve of electrodes the patient wears on his forearm, which stimulates his muscles in precise patterns to produce the desired hand movement. The patient has already poured from a bottle, stirred with a swizzle stick, swiped a credit card, and played Guitar Hero.
I wonder how long these patients get to "play" with the new toys they've been given access to. When the study is over, do they have to go back to where they were when they started? Or do they get to keep using the devices?
Shouldn't the transmitter/receiver pair be placed on either side of the injury? Basically to bridge the gap.
Still very cool (and I'm likely wrong on how it ought to work)
Kind of a large leap, but could they eventually use this to connect parapalegics to brain dead surrogates?
Correlation does not imply causation.
But if you use this to masturbate, does it feel like a stranger?
Is being able to self-cuckold by banging your wife with somebody else's body.
I'm sure there would be a market for this. Imagine if you could get a steady supply of DDF 'braindead' corpses from repressive regimes across the globe. Productize these 'vegetables' or 'zombie people' by installing neural chips triggering signals in their lower brain/spine, either replace their eyes with webcams, or tap directly into their optic nerves for realtime streaming to your VR headset or visual override neural implant.
One part of this consist in controlling a body's movements with an external device - the fact that this device is in turn controlled by the brain occupying the body is another part, but it doesn't have to be that way, obviously. IOW, it is now possible, if not easy, to take control of other people's bodies. Just imagine the potential; it isn't all good.
I hope this technology is used for good an not evil. I'd imagine life is going to imitate art. RoboCops here we come.
I see the 1% using this technology to control their workforce in the future. No need for expensive robots, just a zombie like workforce.
Just about the time that this neural bypass becomes practical there will probably be a way to regenerate broken nerves. Technology floats a lot of new boats and those boats seem to rise about the same time.
"But what about...?"
"I'd try it out on a hot dog first."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.