First US Patient Receives Mind-Reading Brain Device, Can Surf Web With Thought
A brain chip maker has thought one step ahead of Elon Musk’s Neuralink with the first human implementation of a brain-computer interface (BCI) in the US. Bioelectronics medicine company Synchron Systems was the literal brains behind the mind-reading invention.
At Mount Sinai West hospital in New York on Tuesday, the 1.5-inch stent-like device was implanted into the brain of an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patient following approvals by the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct a trial.
The wire was inserted into a blood vessel of the brain of a patient who has ALS and has lost the ability to talk and move, allowing them to communicate just by thinking. The US patient joins four others in Australia, the company’s home base, to have their brains connected to the computer.
The ‘Strenode’ can read the thoughts and brainwaves of the patient via a connected computer system and translate their thoughts into texts and email.
Patients will also be able to surf core areas of the web and perform everyday tasks such as accessing online banking sites and shopping online.
The surgery was a non-invasive procedure, meaning that there was no need to cut into the skull to insert the Strenode. Instead, an incision was made into the neck where a catheter pushed the mind-reading gadget into a blood vessel near the motor cortex.
A second procedure was done to place a pacemaker-like device into the chest of the patient to act as the receiver, which computes what the Strenode picks up. Meanwhile, the Strenode will read the neurons and brainwaves of the patient to determine what they are thinking.
As the technology is still in development, it cannot translate complete sentences, but it can do enough to get the patient’s thoughts across.
The trial was done to measure just how safe these stents are and how much independence can be returned to patients who can now send messages hands-free.
[via Fierce Biotech and Bloomberg, Photo 123486654 © Denis Trofimov | Dreamstime.com]
