 When astronaut Steve Austin, aka the Six Million Dollar
Man, was injured in a plane crash the US government came
up with the cash to bestow him with a bionic left eye,
right arm and legs. The 'bionic man' was a small screen
sensation back in the 70s but now reality is finally catching
up with fiction, with the advent of so-called 'brain chip'
technology.
AT
THE VANGUARD
Dr Naweed Syed is a researcher and professor of neurobiology
at the University of Calgary. His lab, in conjunction
with German researchers, was the first in the world
to develop a silicon chip that can both listen to and
talk back to brain cells. Now that his team has provided
the proof of principle, Dr Syed says the race is on
in labs around the world, including NASA, to develop
technology linking brains and computers. "The moment
you have a two-way link, imagination is the only limit
to what you can do," he says.
Last summer Matthew Nagle, an American
man paralyzed from the neck down, became the first person
to control an electronic device through a brain chip
that read his thoughts. The chip, which transmits brain
cells' electrical impulses, was attached to a computer
monitor; Mr Nagle was able to move the cursor on the
screen by thinking about it.
HOPE
FOR THE DISABLED
Barry Lindemann is the Canadian Paraplegic Association's
manager of community relations in Calgary. Ten years
ago a diving accident left him unable to move his hands
or lower body, so he understands first-hand the challenges
of living with a disability. An assistant helps him
for a couple of hours every day and Mr Lindemann says
he has a happy, rich life, busy with friends, family
and a job he loves. But he admits he misses some of
the things he used to be able to do. "Every day that
I can't open the door for a lady carrying her groceries
is another day I can't live my life to the full extent,"
he says.
Aside from voice recognition software,
Mr Lindemann finds technology designed for disabled
people hasn't advanced much in the last decade. "Most
of it is pretty archaic," he says. He still uses a coat
hanger to pick things up off the floor, for instance,
or a barbeque fork to spear an apple for a snack. He
sees autonomy and independence as the main benefits
of a brain chip for paralyzed people. "If I could just
grasp a glass again it'd be a pretty amazing thing,"
he says
RANGE
OF APPLICATIONS
Besides helping people like Mr Lindemann, Dr Syed says
brain chips have many other medical applications, including
pain and addiction control, as well as the treatment
of psychological disorders. Parkinson's patients and
epileptics can also benefit. Bionic eyes for the blind
are being developed at Johns Hopkins University, in
which a chip is placed in the back of the person's eye
and linked to a mini video camera implanted in a pair
of spectacles. The camera captures images which the
chip sends to the brain for interpretation. Researchers
hope that the images will be good enough for the blind
person to at least make out faces. The ultimate goal
for brain chip technology is to restore mobility to
a paralyzed person by linking brain chips with artificial
limbs, and eventually to stimulate the person's own
muscles.
In terms of complications, Dr Syed
says there is a chance the chip could become sealed
off by other non-neuronal brain cells. "You have a space
shuttle launched in the sky and don't know where it
is," is the analogy he uses to describe it. The invasive
nature of the technology presents the potential for
complications, he says, but adds, "people thought the
same thing about pacemakers."
Barry Lindemann, for one, would
consider a brain chip if he could regain some of his
former abilities. "If they can make a bionic man in
10 years, well sign me up," says the 33-year-old, laughing.
"There's still a lot of fun 40-somethings out there."
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