Brain-implant enables mind over matter

["Dude VanWinkle" <dudevanwinkle () gmail com>]

You know the installation has to suck, but this is pretty nifty:

From: http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9540


A man paralysed from the neck down by knife injuries sustained five
years ago can now check his email, control a robot arm and even play
computer games using the power of thought alone.

Matt Nagle's extraordinary abilities were first reported in March
2005. Now details of the technology that lets him perform these tasks
are published in the journal Nature. Another study in the same issue
reveals a technique that could dramatically improve the speed with
which such implants work.

Electrodes implanted in Nagle's brain measure the neural signals
generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed
limbs. Software trained to recognise different patterns of neural
activity then translates imagined gestures into the movement of an
on-screen cursor or a robotic arm at Nagle's side.

"The fundamental findings are that you can record activity from the
brain years after injury, that thinking about movement is sufficient
to activate the brain, and that we can decode the signal," says John
Donoghue of Brown University in New York, who led the work.

"Even though only one person was studied, the findings are impressive,
especially as you can use the system while talking," says Maria Stokes
a neurologist at the University of Southampton, UK.

Surgeons drilled a hole in Nagle's skull and inserted a pill-sized
chip covered with 96 protruding electrodes into his motor cortex, an
area at the centre of his brain that normally controls bodily
movement. The operation carries the risk of infection and brain
damage, an especially chilling prospect for someone already
quadriplegic.

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-JP<who will wait for the wireless external version>
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