Brain-To-Machine Interface takes shape

[quicksand 0]

Braingate plugs brains into computer

Quote[/b] ]Foxborough, MA, Mar. 20 (UPI) -- A Foxborough, Mass., company has developed technology that plugs a human brain into a desktop computer, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems has developed BrainGate, a product aimed at enabling quadriplegics to do things like surf the Web, write e-mails, play video games and operate TV remotes and telephones just by thinking.

"We can take someone's thought and put it on a screen," said Tim Surgenor, chief executive of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, manufacturer of the device, which is called BrainGate Neural Interface System.

BrainGate has already been tested on one person, and the Food and Drug Administration has given Cyberkinetics permission to test the technology on four other quadriplegics.

The system requires a surgeon to drill a hole in the patient's head and implant a chip on the surface of the brain area responsible for moving arms and hands.

Video demonstrating the device live

Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems web site:

www.cyberkineticsinc.com

OK have to say I am mind blowed about this and I had to post in on this forum to hear the opinions of people I respect over here.It is the first time I`ve seen such a device being used on humans and from what the developers say it is a direct interface that can not be broken if loud noises occour that would alter your attention and cripple the connection as in other similar attempts.

The base is here and future plans are even more mind blowing.They plan to:

1)Make the device wireless

2)Use it to control prosthetic limbs

3)Once the process of storing memories in brain is better understanded, iit will be possible to transfer data and learn other abilities in a second(how could you not draw parelels with Matrix )

4)Make it affordable

Seriously the possibilities from then onward are limitless and I keep thinking about Ghost in The Shell and how similar it is to it and moreover transhumanist philosophy.

To add an Operation Flashpoint related spin to it from what the video shows it is feasable to say that even in it`s current state it could be used to control games directly and render the keyboard and mouse useless.

[D.murphy man 0]

amazing i remember when i was a kid this sort of thing was impossible. shows how far we come in so little time a supose.

Also wouldnt it be possbile (in theory) to take the patients brain out, keep it alive, transplant it into a robot (like sonys robot or somthing) and...well give them full movement back ? althou id imagine talking would be a proplem maybe they could chop off there arms n legs and replace them with robotic ones that are linked to the brain? hell the possbilitys are endless. Giant robo fighting mechs any one?

[quicksand 0]

Quote[/b] ]Also wouldnt it be possbile (in theory) to take the patients brain out, keep it alive, transplant it into a robot (like sonys robot or somthing)

In theory it most certinly is.If you`re intrested you can read more here

On the practical aspect 35 years ago a doctor succesfully removed the head of a monkey from it`s body and surgicaly implanted it to a headless monkey body.There was quite an outcry and people were calling him the real life Frankenstein,but it is clear that done on humans it should probably perform no difrently.

Quote[/b] ]maybe they could chop off there arms n legs and replace them with robotic ones that are linked to the brain?

More or less that`s the idea .Enable handicaped persons to have a direct connection with their prosthetic limbs.This is another area of research that is developing.Eventually prosthetic limbs will surpass the capacity of their human counterparts in strength,endurance and even sensitivity.

[InqWiper 0]

We are becoming borg

[shinRaiden 0]

1) In the case of full unconcious anesthesia required for major organ transplant, there's an issue - at least in heart surgery - where up to 10% or more run a risk of developing severe mental illness as a result of complications of the surgery. Although there is plenty of research done in similar proceedures relating to cojoined twins etc, there's still the issues surrounding the significant reduction of heartrate and other related factors in some cases. Perhaps cryotherapy would resolve that.

This affects transplants more than implants however, as often neurosurgery patients are in anethesisa, but awake, to provide as precise feedback to the surgeons as possible, since there is no room for any margin of error in that work.

2) These guys with the Braingate© have been around for a while, this product seems to be maturing quite nicely. I first read about it several years ago when it was in the early Uni R&D stage, and they were having a tricky time to train it so that the patient could - with significant mental exertion / imaging - slowly think out single letters.

More advanced at the time was another project for blind individuals that in place of their eyes, used ultrasonic ranging devices coupled into a signalling system and tapped into the optics nerves. The patients could 'see' greyscale shadows constructed from ranging data.

3) The biggest problem I see with Braingate© is that it's an invasive product, and afaik requires a medical port penetrating the skull and brain sack. It's a bit of a toss-up though, as they can get far higher sampling bandwidth, and more precise focus, than they could with an external sensor cap. Specifically with the implant, they can target it for a specific application such as limb prothesis, audio or optical interfacing, or audio - textual communication, where a sensor cap generally is "read-only" and non-discrimatory.

----------------------

In general though, this r0x, I can't wait for mine so I can plug my brain into the Internet. Of course it will be heavily firewalled.

[crashdome 3]

I bet the "one person already tested on" was Stephen Hawking.

I can see him walking down the street in that Robo-Cop style. "breeeeee....stomp. breeeeee...stomp. breeeee...stomp"

He rules

[BlackScorpion 0]

In general though, this r0x, I can't wait for mine so I can plug my brain into the Internet. Of course it will be heavily firewalled.

Don't even think that I'd be playing any game with you then...

No more mouse accuracy problems then... "aim there". "Shoot". "Ha ha, gotcha!"

[denoir 0]

This is not new in any way, as a matter of fact, this seems to be more primitive than other existing systems.

For almost a decade we have had systems that read brain waves (the elecromagnetic field induced by them) and transform them into computer commands. Controlling a mouse cursor is one of the more trivial tasks these systems can do - and they do not require any brain surgery as the sensors are external.

[D.murphy man 0]

I bet the "one person already tested on" was Stephen Hawking.

I can see him walking down the street in that Robo-Cop style. "breeeeee....stomp. breeeeee...stomp. breeeee...stomp"

He rules

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7719/steavenhawkins3xy.png

(Yea i got too much time on my hands)

[BlackScorpion 0]

I bet the "one person already tested on" was Stephen Hawking.

I can see him walking down the street in that Robo-Cop style. "breeeeee....stomp. breeeeee...stomp. breeeee...stomp"

He rules

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7719/steavenhawkins3xy.png

(Yea i got too much time on my hands)

[quicksand 0]

@denoir

Quote[/b] ]This is not new in any way, as a matter of fact, this seems to be more primitive than other existing systems.

I have to disagree,quite the opposite is true.The only similar technology is EEG(Electroencephalography) which requiers the user to concentrate intensly to move a mouse cursor on a screen or any other a and the slightest loud noise or anything else intrerruptive disrupts the entire connection.BrainGate creates a direct connection in which the user can talk or move his body(watch the movie) essentially performing any other activity at the same time-i.e it doesn`t require a high level of concentration.

Also,their priority is now to make it wireless,in effect non-invasive

[Necromancer- 0]

Imagine this for the military...

This trembles me..

The soldier of the future would be a cyborg. A hightech living killing machine.

if this comes on the open market, in time mankind will be dependent from machines more and more... Some day a human would be more machine than from flesh and blood.

[PhilippRauch 0]

well i saw several for couple thousand dollars, mainly geared towards disabled ppl, but now its out from OCZ, called neural interface actuator and costs around 90€ in germany...

This is a video from cebit 07, where someone test it with UT2004

Anyone used it with arma yet?

Or do you guys think gamers are too mindless to connect to it? :P

[Baff1 0]

amazing

Also wouldnt it be possbile (in theory) to take the patients brain out, keep it alive, transplant it into a robot (like sonys robot or somthing) and...well give them full movement back ? althou id imagine talking would be a proplem maybe they could chop off there arms n legs and replace them with robotic ones that are linked to the brain? hell the possbilitys are endless. Giant robo fighting mechs any one?

That's how the Daleks got started.

My vote is that no one does that.

[Rhodite 3]

This would raise the whole debate of whether someone has a soul or not etc..

Perhaps a person is not simply composed of just your brain..

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Brains work on the basis of electronic impulses, hence our souls are no more than operating systems for the biomechanical bodies that host them; the memory capacity of the human brain has already been established as being in the magnitude of terabytes, so yeah, going borg I'd say ftw - since machines don't age, and if they do, they can receive upgrades. Human life though can be considered going uphill until your thirties, probably 40's are the limit, then everything goes downhill from that, longer lifespan notwithstanding. Imagine supplying our souls with bodies that would never die... growing "old" would become truly synonymous with growing more experienced, and loose all it's negative connotations!

Ofc that could just be me since I'm starting to feel old...

[Commando84 0]

lol but I think with new solutions come new problems too, like if we had part machine bodies we could rust :D

Also hope nobody develops a computer virus that could mess up our bodies :P

Edited April 15, 2009 by Commando84

[sk3pt 0]

lol but I think with new solutions come new problems too, like if we had part machine bodies we could rust :D:P

Well, we used to get baptized, in the future we'll just get galvanized. :icon_rolleyes: