Yesterday on the internet there was one news which caught my attention, which is there in today’s newspaper also, was that of “ Elon Mask, the billionaire founder of the neurotechnology company Neuralink has said that the first human received an implant from a brain chip start-up and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection, a day after the chip which was implanted on 29th January 2024”. Spikes are activity by neurons, which are cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain to the body.
The credit for creating first prototype of BRAIN CHIP is given to Naweed I Syed, a Pakistani-born Canadian neuro-scientist. He is the first scientist to connect brain cells to a silicon chip, creating the world’s first neurochip. If you go back into history, in 1924 Berger was the first to record brain activity by EEG. He was able to identify oscillatory activity, such as Berger’s wave or the alpha wave (8-13Hz) by analyzing EEG traces. He inserted silver wire under the scalps of his patients.
For the last few years, Brain chips have been increasingly being tested in paralysed people to help them move. The chip reads electrical signals from neurons that determine movement and then reroutes the instructions around a spinal injury to control the muscle or robotic arm.
Musk’s neurotech startup Neuralink has been working toward implanting its skull-embedded brain chip in humans since it was founded in 2016. After years of testing on animal subjects, he announced last December that the company planned to initiate human trials very shortly.
Neuralink has spent over half a decade figuring out how to translate brain signals into digital outputs- imagine being able to move the cursor, send a text message, or type in a word processor with just a thought. While the initial focus is on medical use cases, such as helping paralysed people communicate by inserting a chip in the skull.
Neuralink company is far from the only group working on brain-computer interfaces (BCI), or systems to facilitate direct communication between human brains and external computers. Other researchers have been looking into using BCI to restore lost senses and control prosthetic limbs, among other applications. While these technologies are still in their infancy, they have been around long enough for researchers to increasingly get a sense of how these neural implants interact with the human mind.
From science fiction to a billion-dollar industry- BCI may be the most significant technology to not only catch up to but in some cases even surpass their early science fiction depictions. More than 200,000 people around the world already use some kind of BCI, mostly for medical reasons. Perhaps the best-known use is cochlear implants, which enable deaf people to, in a sense hear. Another use is epileptic seizure prevention: Existing devices can monitor brain-signal activity or take preventive medicines.
For now, BCIs are constrained to the medical domain, but a vast array of nonmedical uses have been proposed by the researchers using this technology. Like using BCIs to interface with numerous apps on an Android tablet, including typing, messaging, and searching the web just by imagining relevant movements. More speculative applications include playing video games, manipulating virtual reality, or even receiving data inputs like text messages or videos directly, bypassing the need for a monitor. These may sound like science fiction, but the reality is that science has reached a point where the cultural and ethical barriers to this kind of technology have begun to reduce.
Imagine in the future, you may have with this technology your smartphone may be wired directly to your brain.
Presently most of the research using BCI is mainly in the medical field, most early adopters are happy if there is technology that allows them to overcome their physical shortcomings, injuries, etc. For people using BCIs to help with a significant medical limitation, it makes sense that the treatment would have a positive psychological effect. But when it comes to considering brain chips for popular use, there will be much concern. The industry’s accelerating growth compounds the urgency of ethical considerations once constrained to science fiction. With the brain chip if your personality could also be altered then it is a point worth pondering over.
Waiting for your feedback on this blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
31st December 2024