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Today, implanted electrode devices for stimulating the brain are extremely crude devices with only a handful of electrodes that are used to mitigate the effects of Parkinson's, epilepsy, and other neurodegenerative conditions. The number of patients with these devices is merely tens of thousands because of the extreme invasiveness of the implantation process and the large size of the implanted device. The invention of a less invasive implant device with many more channels that can interact with the brain would result in revolutionary improvements to brain-machine interfaces, including direct interfaces to the auditory cortex and the visual cortex, expanding dramatically the ways in which artificial systems can support brain function.
Thanks to a new four-year $15.8M grant from the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Columbia Engineering Professor Ken Shepard, a pioneer in the development of electronics that interface with biological systems, is leading a team to do just that: invent an implanted brain-interface device that could transform the lives of people with neurodegenerative diseases or people who are hearing and visually impaired.
"This topic has drawn lots of interest from the private sector recently, including start-ups Neuralink and Kernel," says Shepard, who is the Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering, and professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering. "If we are successful, the tiny size and massive scale of this device could provide the opportunity for transformational interfaces to the brain, including direct interfaces to the visual cortex that would allow patients who have lost their sight to discriminate complex patterns at unprecedented resolutions. This is a highly ambitious project for Columbia, indeed for all of us, and we are very excited to address such a challenging issue."
Source: ScienceDaily
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:15PM (4 children)
Just yesterday I saw a story about somebody trying to reduce a cat scanner sized technology to a wearable [nbcnews.com] set of glasses sized device promising to bring sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and communication to the comatose.
Look, we all know damn well this is not the goal here. I'm sure DARPA had no interest in the blind.
Realtime squad shared vision and knowledge probably has value in a combat situation - even if half implanted go insane after the fact.
Your random blind guy? Not so much. Sorry Geordi.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:39PM
Maybe, just maybe, they know something you don't about laser weapons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @11:43PM
Never heard of video cameras and head-up-displays (HUD)? We've had both for decades. Used in both civilian life and military life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @01:09AM
So they're going to risk Broccoli taking over the world from an undisclosed holodeck instead.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 12 2017, @02:16PM
My dealings with DARPA don't suggest that they're only interested in creating super-soldiers. They do have access to lots of military data - like the surgical database from Vietnam that can inform triage decisions: input your entry/exit points for all wounds and the software can tell you (+/-x%) how long the repair surgery will take, how many units of blood, time for recovery, etc. When you've got 2 surgeons in a tent, limited supplies, and a bigger pile of wounded than you can handle inbound, having that database can definitely make your triage decisions smarter.
Another fun one they funded was thermal regulation via the hands - insert your hand(s) into a temperature controlled liquid bath (cold if you're too hot, hot if you're too cold), and the box forms a seal around the wrist and draws a light vacuum on the bath, expanding all the capillaries in the hand(s) increasing heat exchange, which is already considerable with the circulating liquid bath. They could do some really impressive things with that, exposing people to extreme temperatures with little or no negative effects due to the thermal regulation assistance.
Then they made the radio controlled dragonfly - nothing but evil potential there, I agree.
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