A US firm has implanted 50 chips into people’s brains, with scientists at the company hopeful that they will one day be able to massively improve the lives of people with blindness, deafness, depression and physical paralysis.
The device is called the NeuroPort Array and it’s been made by a company called Blackrock Neurotech, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
What is the aim of the NeuroPort device?
This medical device aims to increase independence and mobility, and ultimately, quality of life, for people with paralysis.
For those implanted with the chip to be able to control robotic arms and electric wheelchairs with their mind, amongst other things.
How does it work?
The NeuroPort accesses the thoughts of the person that has been implanted with the chip through 100 microneedles reading electrical signals that the brain produces.
The implant latches onto those signals produced by the brain, and decodes them using machine learning.
What tasks can the implant perform?
The implant can apparently perform complex tasks like using a computer, drawing a portrait, control robotic arms and wheelchairs, play video games, even regain sensation with just their brain signals.
What is the short term goal for the implant?
There will be further hoops to jump through for the company, as you’d hope with something as intricate and potentially ethically challenging as this.
Blackrock Neurotech will need to get FDA approval if the implant is to leave the lab to interface with tools, as well as hopefully changing the lives of those who receive them.
What is the long term vision for the implant?
The long-term vision is that their implants will become as readily available to people with paralysis as pacemakers are for people with heart issues.
If it gains approval and can be tested properly, it could make a real difference to people in great need.
Once home-use BCIs are available, they’ll help people build new lives that may have seemed impossible following their disability. The company thinks people will return to work, establish greater independence, and engage with the world in powerful new ways.
