Neural "Extension Cord" Developed

moon_monkey writes "Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a 'neural extension cord' by growing neurons attached to a microchip. The cord is made by gradually moving two batches of neurons apart, as they naturally grow towards one another. This biological 'data cable' could then interface with the brain once implanted, the researchers say." From the article: "...in the long run, it may not be necessary to interface directly with nerves at all. 'In Europe most researchers in this field are using non-invasive EEG,' [an outside researcher] explains... 'The signals are weaker so more complex processing is needed, but not having to perform surgery on the nervous system has many advantages,' [he] says."

Finally...

[End Program]

"Real" virtual p0rn!

Come to Papa, Jenna.

How about repairing spinal injuries?

[nizo]

I know several people with severe spinal injuries that could potentially benefit from something like this. Heck using this to restore the use of amputated and reattached limbs/appendages springs to mind as well.

Implications

[RyanFenton]

Sure - being able to read the impulses sent to muscles, immune systems, etc. will be great. Being able to interact with a truly naturally developed informational system can lead to a lot of obvious and non-obvious insights.

What would be fascinating is if we were to discover interfaces that allow contents of memory or other brain contents to be read in this way. Of course, this is the start of a lot of sci-fi stories, few of which have a good ending - but if we were able to use such 'clean' techniques to read and store at least some of the contents of minds, I still think it would be a very good net change. Even if very few things are able to be read, and even then very slowly, it would open up many important insights - how massively multi-nerve systems communicate, how memories change in terms of pure data.

On a personal level, it would be a really nice change to be able to leave behind a little undiluted, untranslated part of my memories and self in the world beyond genetics and teaching others, rather than just let it all rot or hope for a supernatural rescue. It's not the loss of the self that annoys me about our current idea of death, it's the total loss of information that we currently accept as part of the process. Even if it was just a database for others to query, I'd love for my raw memories to live beyond myself.

Ryan Fenton

Nice, but

[hypermanng]

It's all well and good to "biopatch" if you will, but machine-biological interfaces are really the holy grail. Machine engineering is far easier than biological engineering, more replaceable, more durable, and eventually more versatile. If your arm is amputated, we can either restore some basic functionality with a neural extension cord, or we can put a big fat processor connected to precise abiological sensors on it to provide all the proprioceptive and tactile data the original arm would have supplied. The only problem is presentation of that data to our biological brains. For that we'd still need some sort of electrode grid or something. Not an easy problem, but at least if it's solved once it's more or less solved for all time. Trying to regrow biological parts involves a gajillion types of tissue and membranes and so on in bewildering variety. Nature did not design us for easy reverse engineering.

In any case, biopatching is great and tractible for reconnecting pieces that already fundamentally work, but for wholesale replacement at a high grade of function we still need that bridge.

Other possibilities?

[anethema]

Would it be possible to use this or a similar technique to join breaks in the spinal cord? Maybe even for limited functionality if the 'bandwidth' of one of these cords isn't enough?

Re:Understatement of the year

[Ceriel Nosforit]

I've been wondering myself if neural plasticity would be enough to decode the protocols and codecs used on the net... A rat brain evidently managed to operate a flight simulator, so why couldn't a human brain learn TCP/IP?

Plus, there was an article some time ago about electrodes on the tounge letting the blind see thanks to neural plasticity, so maybe it'd be enough for me to suck on a CAT-5? XD

At any rate, it seems to me the difficult part will be getting data OUT from the brain rather than INTO the brain. Once we learn that trick properly things might get really interesting.