How would you like to turn your brain into a modem?
The Daily Beast reports on some fascinating developments to do with using neural interfaces allowing humans to beam data from their minds to external devices and back, meaning for example that soldiers (the research is being funded by the military) could control drones with their brains.
Looking into the story, I found a page from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, which played a key role in the original military development of the internet. This page included an image of a stentrode, a tiny device that looks like the stents used to keep arteries and veins open — my father has one — and that can capture and transmit signals to certain areas of the brain, particularly those related to motor function. In other words, a brain modem.
So far, most experiments involving brain stimulation have been carried out non-invasively using helmets with electrodes attached to the scalp that capture neurological activity in certain areas, albeit approximately. Tests have been successfully carried out on animals (macaques able to move a robotic arm by just thinking about it) or to return brain-damaged patients some neurological functions (allowing somebody who is quadriplegic to move devices with their brains), along the lines of research in Spain using electroencephalograms.
But the idea of reliable peripheral interfaces that provide fine control requires much more precise data collection, which in turn means placing devices into veins and arteries not just in the area to be measured, but also providing bidirectional external stimulation. The idea of direct neural interfaces, or DNI, is not especially new, and is one that has already been applied to cochlear and retinal implants that allow for unidirectional external stimulation to the ear or eye to restore sight or hearing.
Obviously, it’s a big step from imagining a bidirectional device introduced into an artery close to brain activity that would allow for fully functioning interaction with another such device located on the scalp, but progress so far makes it look increasingly possible. In the not-too-distant future we could be talking about generating motor action by stimulating the corresponding motor cortex, or making devices work, controlling machines, or receiving external stimulation… all by thinking.
This all began by trying to help people who had lost certain senses or physical capacities, but we now close to the point of putting it to a growing number of uses. Military applications could run from equipping soldiers to be able to control devices with their minds right through to improving the lives of wounded war veterans. Of course the only drawback is having to stick a stentrode in your brain via a nearby vein! :-)
(En español, aquí)
