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Like Neo from “The Matrix”, we want to learn kung-fu by plugging an overgrown USB stick into the back of our heads. Do we not? 😜
Last week @neura.link presented their brain implant prototype and received quite some publicity. This presents a great opportunity to pinpoint the importance of this research.
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Millions of people suffer from an impairment of the CNS due to stroke, epilepsy, etc. A lot of them are left immobilized and unable to communicate. With brain-machine interfaces being available for more than 30 years now, there is hope that these functions can be partially restored in such people. Brain implants (i.e., neuroprosthetics) are already used in clinical settings. The cochlear implant that restores lost hearing is the most successful thus far.
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Motor (somatosensory) implants enable the restoration of primary motor functions (e.g., reaching, grasping). Here, intracortical microelectrodes are implanted in the motor cortex to record neuronal activity, which is then decoded to command an end effector (e.g., a prosthetic hand). Restoring complex motor movements, however, is still a big challenge because these movements recruit numerous brain areas and have complex dynamics, which are not well understood yet. Cognitive implants aiming at restoring full neuronal circuits responsible for higher-order functions (memory, language) are yet to come.
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Although neuroprosthetics and BCIs can significantly increase the patient’s quality of life, they come at a price: brain implants’ efficiency decreases over time due to material erosion, change in the brain tissue, and hide significant risks of inflammation and tissue damage. Luckily, recent methods aiming to improve the neuroprosthetics come from the development of “intelligent” neurobiohybrid systems, containing both natural (biological) and artificial components.
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BCIs have made an amazing progress, but we are still very far away from plugging into the Matrix.
❓What are your thoughts? What do you want to see such technologies being able to do? (References – in the comments) #bmi #bci #brainrepair #neuroprosthetics #brainimplants #neuralink
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