- System could be used to give soldiers ‘supersenses’ and boost brainpower
- Will also allow radical new treatments for patients with sensory disorders
- Four teams will focus on vision and two on aspects of hearing and speech
The US military has revealed $65 of funding for a programme to develop a ‘brain chip’ allowing humans to simply plug into a computer.
They say the system could give soldiers supersenses and even help treat people with blindness, paralysis and speech disorders
The goal is ‘developing an implantable system able to provide precision communication between the brain and the digital world,’ DARPA officials said.
Scroll down for video
The goal is ‘developing an implantable system able to provide precision communication between the brain and the digital world,’ DARPA officials said. Four of the teams will focus on vision and two will focus on aspects of hearing and speech.
It has selected its five grant recipients for the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program, which it began at the start of this year.
Brown University, Columbia University, The Seeing and Hearing Foundation, the John B. Pierce Laboratory, Paradromics Inc and the University of California, Berkeley will all receive multi-million dollar grants.
‘These organizations have formed teams to develop the fundamental research and component technologies required to pursue the NESD vision of a high-resolution neural interface and integrate them to create and demonstrate working systems able to support potential future therapies for sensory restoration,’ official said.
Four of the teams will focus on vision and two will focus on aspects of hearing and speech.
The work has the potential to significantly advance scientists’ understanding of the neural underpinnings of vision, hearing, and speech and could eventually lead to new treatments for people living with sensory deficits.
‘The NESD program looks ahead to a future in which advanced neural devices offer improved fidelity, resolution, and precision sensory interface for therapeutic applications,’ said Phillip Alvelda, the founding NESD Program Manager.
‘By increasing the capacity of advanced neural interfaces to engage more than one million neurons in parallel, NESD aims to enable rich two-way communication with the brain at a scale that will help deepen our understanding of that organ’s underlying biology, complexity, and function.
‘A million neurons represents a miniscule percentage of the 86 billion neurons in the human brain.
‘Its deeper complexities are going to remain a mystery for some time to come. But if we’re successful in delivering rich sensory signals directly to the brain, NESD will lay a broad foundation for new neurological therapies. ‘
The program’s first year will focus on making fundamental breakthroughs in hardware, software, and neuroscience, and testing those advances in animals and cultured cells.
Phase II of the program calls for ongoing basic studies, along with progress in miniaturization and integration, with attention to possible pathways to regulatory approval for human safety testing of newly developed devices.
As part of that effort, researchers will cooperate with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin exploration of issues such as long-term safety, privacy, information security, compatibility with other devices, and the numerous other aspects regulators consider as they evaluate potential applications of new technologies.
‘The goal is to achieve this communications link in a biocompatible device no larger than one cubic centimeter in size, roughly the volume of two nickels stacked back to back,’ DARPA has said previously.
ELON MUSK’S NEURALINK
Elon Musk’s latest company Neuralink is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices.
Neuralink was registered in California as a ‘medical research’ company last July, and he plans on funding the company mostly by himself.
It will work on what Musk calls the ‘neural lace’ technology, implanting tiny brain electrodes that may one day upload and download thoughts.
In The Matrix, users plugged into a computer using a bulky cable attached to the brain
He said ‘neural laces’ will help people with severe brain injuries in just four years.
And in eight to ten years, the Matrix-style technology will be available to everyone, he added.
Neuralink is aiming to launch a product that will help people who suffer from serious brain injuries as a result of disorders such as stroke and cancer in just four years, Musk said.
