Electric Brain by R. Douglas Fields

Author:R. Douglas Fields,
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781948836296
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
Published: 2019-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 29: Microelectrode “Utah Array” for implantation into the cerebral cortex for BCI and used to control prosthetic limbs. The array provides 128 channels for recording neural activity through microfabricated electrodes that are about a millimeter long.

“The first time I was able to move my hand it was a big shock. It was something that I hadn’t moved in about three and a half years. Now it’s something so fluid, it is kind of like it was before I had my injury. I just think about what I want to do and then I can do it. The system is essentially replacing my spinal cord with an artificial spinal cord,” Ian says.

In a press release accompanying publication of the scientific paper announcing this achievement in 2016, Chad Bouton, a member of the team of researchers at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, said, “This is the first time a completely paralyzed person has regained movement just by using their own thoughts.”40 This technology could not only help people with spinal cord injury, it could also be used to enable people with paralysis from a stroke or traumatic brain injury to regain control of their inert limbs.

Nancy’s brain implant is not connected to a device that stimulates her own muscles; it is connected to a computer, which she is learning to control by her thoughts. On the computer screen an animated robotic hand responds to her mental commands. Nancy describes her elation when she was able to move the correct fingers on the robotic arm by her mental effort. It was the first time she could move something to interact with the world since her spinal cord was severed in her car accident. The task was to touch the correct dots on a keypad with the correct finger of the animated robotic arm on the computer screen. “I was able to touch the dots, depending on which finger I needed. We managed to get this done the very first day that I tried it!” The animated robotic arm could just as easily be a real robotic arm, like the one Nathan used to shake President Obama’s hand, or it could be a computer keyboard on the screen to enable her to type words or commands to operate other devices that will help her regain independence.

“I played piano before my injury,” Nancy says with a smile. So, to her delight, the scientists programmed an electronic keyboard on the computer monitor connected to her brain through the implant, and Nancy began to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, a musical performance conducted by her mind.

“I could play the piano by thinking about it, as if my hand were actually on the keyboard! It is pretty amazing to me.” She laughs as she tells us that the technician who had programmed the keyboard had no musical training, and he did not realize where middle C was. When Nancy played what should have been the middle C key with her imagination, the wrong note sounded. She

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