by Brain-computer interface technology is at the heart of films such as Ready Player One, The Matrix and Avatar. But outside the realm of science fiction, BCI is being used on Earth to help paralyzed people communicate, to study dreams and to control robots.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk announced in January – to much fanfare – that his neurotechnology company Neuralink had implanted a computer chip in humans for the first time. In February, he announced that the patient was able to control a computer mouse with his thoughts.
Neuralink’s aim is noble: to help people who cannot otherwise communicate and interact with the environment. But details are scarce. The project immediately sounded alarm bells about brain privacy, the risk of exercise and other things that could go wrong.
Related: Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted its first brain chip in humans
Dr Steve Kassem, senior research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia, says the Neuralink news should be taken with “tons of salt”. This is not the first company to make a neural implant, he says. In fact, Australia is the “hot spot” for related neurological research.
Do patients dream of electric sheep?
A University of Technology Sydney project that received millions in funding from the Department of Defense is currently in its third phase to show how soldiers can use their brain signals to control a robot dog.
“We succeeded [demonstrating] that a welder can use their brain to issue a command to assign the dog to reach a destination that is completely hands-free … so they can use their hands for other purposes,” Professor CT Lin, director of the UTS Computer Information Center and the BCI, says.
The soldier uses augmented reality glasses with a special graphene interface to issue brain signal commands to send the robotic dog to different locations. Lin says they are working on making the technology multi-user, faster and able to control other vehicles such as drones.
Meanwhile, Sydney company Neurode has created a headset to help people with ADHD by monitoring their brain and delivering electronic pulses to address changes. Another UTS team is working on the DreamMachine, which aims to recreate dreams from brain signals. It uses artificial intelligence and electroencephalogram data to generate images from the subconscious.
And then there are the implants.
A good sign
Synchron started at the University of Melbourne and is now also based in New York. It uses a mesh that is inserted into the blood vessels of the brain that allows patients to use the internet, sending a signal that works a bit like Bluetooth. People can shop online, email and communicate using computer control technology.
Synchron has developed a Brain-Computer Interface that uses existing technologies such as the stent and the catheter to enter the brain without the need for open brain surgery. pic.twitter.com/Cooh77oukU
— CNET (@CNET) September 26, 2023
Synchron has implanted the mesh in several patients and is monitoring them, including one in Australia. Patient P4, who has motor neuron disease, the mesh was implanted a few years ago.
“I believe he has over 200 sessions,” says Gil Rind, Sychron’s senior director of technology. “He’s still going strong with the implants and is working closely with us.
“He is able to use his computer through the system … As the disease has progressed it is very challenging to use physical buttons.
“This gave him another means of being able to interact with his computer – for online banking, communication with his carer, [with] people.”
Dr Christina Maher at the University of Sydney Brain and Mind Center says Synchron’s technology is “miles ahead” of Elon Musk and is more sophisticated and safer because it does not require open brain surgery. The researchers have also published more than 25 articles, she says.
“With Neuralink, we don’t know much about it.
“My sense is that testing the efficacy and safety of their surgical robots is a big priority for them … so they’re much more on the robotics side of things, which makes commercial sense.”
The need for regulation
Amid the hype and promise of neurotechnology, however, there are concerns about who will be able to access the assistive technologies and how they will be protected.
Maher says it’s a question of balancing the need for innovation with appropriate regulation, and allowing access to those who need it most. She says the “difference between haves and have-nots” is being debated in Australia and around the world.
Related: The big idea: should we all be putting chips in our brains?
“When brain-computer interfaces become more common, it’s really going to divide people between those who can afford it and those who can’t,” she says.
Rind says Synchron is aimed at those with the most to gain, such as people with quadriplegia. “We want to expand that as far as we can – hopefully we can reach bigger markets and help more people in need,” he says.
The faces of the clinicians, staff and family of the first patient who successfully received the implant was a personal, pivotal moment for him, he says.
On Neuralink, Kassem warns that there will always be dangers when a for-profit company develops the technology. “We don’t need a cell phone plan for your brain,” he says.
“And what if this is hacked? There is always a risk if it is not a closed system.”
However, Neuralink is more likely to use people’s data.
“Just like every single app on your phone and computer, Neuralink will monitor as much as possible. Everything he could,” says Kassem.
“It will be stored somewhere.”
Brain data protection
Maher says that hacking will still be a risk if devices are connected to the internet, and he agrees that data is a big problem. She says that much of our social media, biometric and other data is already out there, but brain data is different.
“And [BCI companies] under the same data privacy laws… the difference in many people’s minds is that brain data is pretty private, your thoughts are private.
“The big picture here is that when we start recording a lot of brain data, there’s going to be a whole megaton of data out there,” she says.
Kassem says that despite privacy concerns, there are exciting possibilities for interacting with the brain.
“We must remember how powerful and significant the brain is … everything you are now, everything you were, and everything you will be is just your brain, nothing else,” he says he.
There are trillions of neural connections in the brain, which lead to “infinite opportunities”, he says, quoting US physicist Emerson Pugh: “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we could not ‘. t.”
