Advances in brain implants

When our ancestors discovered that they could create cutting tools by sharpening stones, they saw that they could use them to obtain food or to kill their fellow humans, the creation of mental chip technology is in the hands of people like Elon Musk, Bill Gates or Jet Bezos but its use and regulation will be the responsibility of all of us because we will all be either users or we will have to interact with people who use them.

Imagine, for example, in the future, a classroom where an exam is being held and one of the students has a chip implanted in their brain with a connection to a database with all the topics of the course. Guess who can pass the exam without having to study? and this is the most innocent example where those who do not use this technology would be affected by being in a situation of inferiority.

In totalitarian governments, brain chips could create a dystopian society, where the simple fact of having critical thinking against the government would be repressed, how to make this tool that allows us to become healthier, better and freer, that is one of the challenges that we will have to resolve as a society in the coming years.

This is nothing new, on February 25, 1957 the first cochlear implant in the world was performed, these implants directly stimulate the auditory nerve, the auditory nerve sends the signals generated by the implant to the brain and the brain recognizes them as a sound Listening through a cochlear implant is not the same as listening with a healthy ear, but it allows people who use it to recognize alarm signals, understand sounds in the environment, and recognize words in conversation or on a telephone. . It is a system with many years of experience and very reliable, in 2019 there were approximately 736 people in the world with devices of this type implanted in their heads, in this case the device connects with the auditory nerve, but in the 1990s 70 at the University of California in Los Angeles developed research funded by the Darpa program, the famous agency for advanced defense research projects of the United States, the same one that gave rise to arpanet, the germ of the current Internet.

Thanks to this research, the first neuroprosthetic devices implanted in humans were created in the mid-90s. Closer to us in time we have the example of 2012 that goes further, because it directly connects a computer to the brain, it is a work led by pioneer Leigh Hochberg, demonstrated that two people with tetraplegia could control robotic arms through thought, they did so when they were connected to the neural interface system. The two people with implants were able to reach and grab objects in a three-dimensional space and one participant even used the system to serve herself coffee for the first time since she became paralyzed almost 15 years ago, but the takeoff of this new technology begins in the current decade. Of the 20, in 2021 synchron eye on this name because it is the great competitor of neuralink announced that its Stentrode device was capable of allowing patients with severe paralysis to resume daily tasks including texting emails shopping and banking in line all this just by thinking about it.

Synchron is several years ahead of neuralink and follows a somewhat different line of development. The Stentrode device uses blood vessels as a means of communication with the brain. To place it, it is necessary to perform surgery that introduces it to the top of the brain. cerebral cortex, once made the device expands to adhere to the walls of the blood vessel and thus allow the natural flow of blood. The device communicates with the computer wirelessly without the need for cables. A curiosity, the largest shareholders of Synchron are Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, investments in this sector grew by 6% from 2014 to 2021 and we are only at the beginning of a race for giants.

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