Get Ready For The REAL Matrix

Forget Implanted Chips, 'Braingate' Plugs Right Into Your Thinker


[By Michael Berger, Nanowerk.com | Thursday, 5 July, 2007.]
If you have seen the movie The Matrix then you are familiar with 'jacking in' - a brain-machine neural interface that connects a human brain to a computer network. For the time being, this is still a sci-fi scenario, but don't think that researchers are not heavily working on it. What is already reality today is something called neuroprosthetics, an area of neuroscience that uses artificial microdevices to replace the function of impaired nervous systems or sensory organs. Different biomedical devices implanted in the central nervous system, so-called neural interfaces, already have been developed to control motor disorders or to translate willful brain processes into specific actions by the control of external devices. These implants could help increase the independence of people with disabilities by allowing them to control various devices with their thoughts. Not surprisingly, the other candidate for early adoption of this technology is the military.


C4 quadriplegic Matthew Nagle is the first human Braingate user in a highly controversial clinical trial by Cyberkinetics of Foxborough, Massachusetts.




Cyberkinetics is just one of a dozen labs working on brain-computer interfaces, many of them funded by more than $25 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Defense.


(Full story here.)
(Story on Matthew Nagle here.)