3 replies to this topic

[kevin]

If a monkey can do it without knowing what or why its doing it.. just think what a human might do..

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Cyberkinetics
Based: Foxborough, MA
Founded: 2000
http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com

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Why It's Fierce: Talk about cutting-edge technology. Scientists at Brown University helped develop early-stage bionics in the form of implantable electronic devices. Now Cyberkinetics is taking the technology several steps further. It's been green-lighted for a clinical trial to implant its BrainGate technology into five severely disabled patients to determine if they can use the technology to send simple computer commands through channeled thought. It may sound like Fantastic Voyage, but the hardheaded scientists behind this venture garnered $9.3 million in first round funding led by Oxford Bioscience Partners. A 2002 merger with Bionic Technologies added to a tech team armed with intellectual property rights gained from Brown, MIT, and others. They say they're three to five years away from putting a product on the market, and there are a lot of disabled people in the world cheering them on. Highly speculative, but fascinating.

What to look for: Initial study results are due out before the end of the year.

[ocsrazor]

Cosmos,

Yes, the risks of implantation are minimal, less invasive than for almost any other type of neurosurgery. They are using microwire electrodes (about the thickness of a hair) pushed in very slowly. A small hole is drilled in the skull and is filled with a device that sits on top of the brain's membrane and pushes the wires in, the whole thing is capped with medical grade silicone.

They are simply doing principal components analysis with Kalman filtering to make a statistical guess at what the motor cortex is sending out at any one instant. The filters have to be trained for every individual. Crude but effective and the more wires you have, the better the prediction.

Best,
Peter