Research has geared up lately in the area of brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Dr. Gary Marcus, at New York University and Dr. Christof Koch at the Allen Institute for Brain Science told The Medical Futurist that brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was decades ago, but the field will advance significantly in the upcoming years. Imagine a retinal chip giving you perfect eyesight or the ability to see in the dark, a cochlear implant granting you perfect hearing or a memory chip bestowing you with almost limitless memory. What if you could type into a computer with only your thoughts or control your entire smart house by sending out the necessary brainwaves?
Although that’s really galactic leaps away, the first neuroprosthetics is already on the market: you can purchase cochlear implants, and retinal implants – the latter was approved by the FDA in 2013. Moreover, implants for people with Parkinson’s disease send electrical pulses deep into the brain, activating some of the pathways involved in motor control. Rarer, but also in use, are brain implant therapies for people paralyzed by spinal cord injury or other neurological damage. A chip inserted into the brain reads off electrical signals that are translated by a computer to restore some movement and communication. Couple it with an exoskeleton, and magic will truly happen: lately, it made headlines that a 30-year-old paralyzed man, Thibault, was able to move all four of his limbs with the help of a ‘mind-reading’ exoskeleton. We expect more similar stories to come.
Source: www.bbc.com