The Pakistani without whom Neuralink might not have existed
Neuralink, a company bankrolled by billionaire Elon Musk, recently unveiled a new design for a brain-computer interface. The company stated that it had conducted successful tests on animals. Unlike typical BMIs where spiky silicon electrode pads are implanted inside the brain (called Utah arrays) and for which a socket needs to be implanted on to the head, the Neuralink’s prototype connects to the brain through dozens of thin wires and is meant to eventually be small enough to fit inside the skull and transmit wirelessly.
However, it should be noted that the way Neurochip, and Brain-machine Interface technology is advancing couldn’t have had been possible without Dr. Naveed Syed, a Pakistani-born Canadian neuro-scientist, and his team from University of Calgary’s efforts. It is interesting to know that Syed and his fellow researchers have an impressive history when it comes to this field. Back in 2004, they were the first ones in the world to develop a Neurochip that made it possible for two-way communication to occur between a brain cell and a computer chip or electronic device, so basically creating the world’s first successful Neurochip, thus inargurating this race of connecting our brains to machines and creating us into some sort of cyborg, though his prototype was still far from being consumer/patient ready which were evident due to its sensitivity and size issues. However, many of these issues have been greatly improved by introducing newer models to a point where Dr. Naweed Syed himself has said that he will start working on brain-chip trails on humans in a few months.
“The hybrid bionic chip” is one of the three novel chips developed by Syed for detecting seizures at a resolution never achieved before. Moreover, after its implantation, the chip can detect seizures and convey these signals wirelessly to a wearable pocket backpack , thus relieving the patients without some sort of a thirty-foot cable which is otherwise a part of the conventional procedure. Another important aspect of this chip is that it will be MR compatible, thus allowing the surgeon to pinpoint the precise location of the seizures, thereby facilitating surgical resection. This innovative technology is based on very sensitive electrodes and is soon to be tested on humans at the University of Calgary at Alberta in Canada on fall 2019, or 2020.
Another astounding point to be noted is that Dr. Naweed Syed has written more than 100+ highly cited research papers published in Nature, Science, Neuron and other prestigious journals and produced several dozen inventions and innovations. Astonishingly, he only filed a handful of patents and left many without securing his IP. He is a strong believer that a competitive and open source environment is more conducive to innovation and major breakthroughs in the field of science, and that condoning the turf off, deters others from exploring that particular field of research. Maybe without the efforts of this man in the past, startups like Neuralink might not have existed.
