

The Future of Brain Implants - wikiburner
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579435592981780528#printMode

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XorNot
The real problem with brain implants is that they are still high risk. You do
not want to do them unless you have no other options.

There's no way to put them in without inherently causing some amount of tissue
damage - so you're committed to brain damage occurring at the moment.

And once in, the good ones, you can't take out - neurons grow into them and
trying to pull them out will take a chunk of tissue with them.

If there's ever going to be a significant uptake in such technology, these are
all issues we have to solve - i.e. we need a way of getting them wired in non-
destructively, and a way to undo that non-destructively. That's well into
science fiction realms - nanotechnological wiring which carefully weaves
between cells and the like.

~~~
caycep
Actually the DBS implants for Parkinson's disease are relatively safe, and are
being used more and more often, frequently to correct adverse effects from
medications...it's about a 1-2% chance of a minor hemorrhage with infection
rates differing among centers. The VA had something terrible, like 9% but the
series out of UCSF did better. These are all treatable, or at worst, you just
remove the device.

In terms of removal, it's actually easier with age, for some odd reason.
Surgeons report that after a few years, they slide out. A lot of handwaving as
to why, but some thought is that there's some sort of encapsulation layer that
builds between the surface and the neural tissue, or some layer of fluid space
or whatnot.

It's a matter of perfecting the tech. The experimental BCI stuff - i.e. Utah
arrays, are still externalized and are risky, and yes they do have a ways to
go before ready for population-wide deployment..

~~~
malandrew
How complex is the surgery for these? For example, do we already have some
sort of skull/brain endoscope whereby you drill a little whole and do the
surgery by wire, or do you still have to open up the skull to install the
implants?

~~~
caycep
It's not too bad. More like the "brain endoscope" route, except it's just a
think micro electrode to confirm the target, then the actual wire itself.
Nothing optical (although our surgeon does use an optical endoscope for a
different type of surgery, pituitary tumor removal).

Pretty standard stereotactic stuff - metal rigid frame (google Leksell or
CRW/Luminant for examples) gets bolted into the outermost bone layer (w/ local
anesthesia) that puts the head into an XYZ cartesian coordinate system. The
complex stuff is the planning - MRI images have to be taken w/ the frame on,
and there's some linear image registration that happens via software. Once the
surgeon plans the trajectory (basically a straight line to the targeted brain
structure), it's relatively easy - the incision/craniotomy is basically a ~1
cm or less burr hole drilled into the skull, and a micro drive advances first
a micro electrode (for confirmation via single unit nerve firing recordings
every ~ 0.5 mm or so), then the actual electrode, which is a little over 1 mm
in diameter. The surgeon may adjust the trajectory by a few mm either way if
he decides he doesn't like the recordings along the length of the trajectory.

The battery/onboard electronics is in a pacemaker-like device that is just put
in under the skin in the chest...the tunneling of the wire from the skull to
to chest is arguably the hardest part surgically.

Epilepsy brain mapping, on the other hand, is a whole lot more complex, with
much more signals processing and data acquisition involved (a bunch of 8x8,
16x16 or more grids of ~ 0.5-1cm electrodes recording local field potentials,
and a open craniotomy where you take off a large chunk of skull)

~~~
dm2
Are the power and electronics embedded in the skin for a specific reason? I
would much rather have a plug in my head and have all of the electronics and
battery external.

I would want a flesh colors cap for the plug for when it's unplugged, don't
want anyone trying to plug headphones into me.

~~~
caycep
infection and wound healing. Breaks in the skin are always a huge infection
risk, compounded by the fact that implanted hardware is always an infection
risk, especially ones that are exposed. The reason being that implants do not
have convenient blood vessels coursing through them like us meat bags, and
thus the white blood cells that fight infection can't really clear any
bacteria that happens to stick onto the surface of these things. Keeping
things under the skin solves a lot of these problems. The experimental Utah
arrays with the Braingate consortium are in fact externalized, (mostly due to
bandwidth limitations of the hardware) and managing those folks are pretty
tricky.

A port would be nice - I think a more pressing need for "ports" would be the
critical care and oncology (cancer) folks - patients who need to provide
access to the bloodstream. Central lines, dialysis fistulas, chemotherapy
ports are all notorious for getting infection.

We're not talking about a minor infection of a cut, say, but serious risks
like abcesses and sepsis and meningitis here (especially re brain implants who
cross the meninges and into brainspace...don't want bacteria happily munching
away there...)

That being said, the next evolution of the brain-machine interfaces that use
high-bandwith data and power transfer to get around the whole pesky skin
issue.

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ingenter
What really scares my about this concept is corporations having control over
device in my head, as they do now with phones.

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kgarten
The problem with any implants ... how to upgrade? I don't believe much in
implantables. We can augment us with wearable tech just fine. The
disadvantages of implants are way higher than the advantages (in foreseeable
future): potential infections, how to upgrade etc.

~~~
dm2
The first ones probably won't be easy to upgrade.

The far from future ones will be so advanced that they will upgrade themselves
or "grow".

The BCIs that can be upgraded can either be plugged in and unplugged to be
upgraded or could be wireless.

~~~
clef
That's a very good one, and We already have brain "implants"that can be
upgraded, they are called "laptops" or "tablets", the difference is they are
no directly linked to the brain. I wonder if the intermediate state will be to
have a kind of "Bluetooth" implant that can communicate with those portable
devices before the devices becomes more synthetic/organic and can be
seamlessly integrated in the human body.

~~~
dm2
I think a brain implant requires a BCI
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interfac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface)

Yes, wireless would be possible but the connection to the brain and speaking
the same language are the biggest hurdles.

There is a ton of cool stuff that will become available in the medical
industry in the next few years. There's no reason why we can't have a
miniature "factory" inside of our bodies to regulate levels of everything and
even create cures for diseases or viruses that might infect us.

Monitoring the body will also become more popular. A few small sensors
throughout the body to monitor vitals and any information available about the
human body via your phone.

It's coming soon, just be patient and don't vote for people who will suppress
technological research and progress.

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personlurking
At first such implants will likely be high cost and therefore only available
to the wealthy, making them our betters. Contrast that now with having the
latest tech (like an iphone), which may have its own benefits but not
necessarily make one better for owning it.

~~~
melling
Just like most tech, it starts off extremely expensive then drops quite
quickly. The human genome project cost $3 billion. The cost now is around
$1000. Another order of magnitude price drop within 5 years?

~~~
personlurking
Of course. Though I wonder if this pattern will change when it comes to the
kinds of implants talked about in the article.

As an aside, I'm reading a book (Open Veins of Latin America) and it starts
out with the history and how the Spaniards barely needed to do anything to
wipe out the Amerindians since there was such a wide gap in weapon technology
(plus bacteria) between them.

An implant which literally makes you a better human might be kept highly
priced, like a Ferrari, which doesn't come down in price after a few years.

If anyone wants to see this mostly played out in a tv show, Almost Human
(episode 10) introduces the notion of "chromes" who are genetically enhanced
humans. Inherently better than regular humans, the show has them preferring
their own company rather than mixing with regular folk. I'm hoping they'll
expand on the concept in further episodes.

~~~
melling
Cars don't follow Moore's Law. Nothing about them improves by 2x over 18-24
months. The material costs also prevent a lower limit in cost.

Btw, Almost Human might be cancelled. Better support it if you want another
season.

------
ds9
"What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a
next-generation cochlear implant ... a memory chip, wired directly into your
brain's hippocampus, ... an implanted interface with the Internet ..."

As long as I don't have to "give" anything to remain free from implants, I'll
watch the technology with interest, and maybe consider something when it's
perfected and fully under the user's control.

If on the other hand, there is any effort to impose this sort of thing on
unwilling people, there will be widespread violent resistance (a prediction,
not a threat).

~~~
greatdox
This Kindle eBook was written in 2003 and self-published in 2010 on Kindle:

[http://www.amazon.com/America-The-Enslaved-Neurochip-
ebook/d...](http://www.amazon.com/America-The-Enslaved-Neurochip-
ebook/dp/B007LAX6YY)

In the future 2032 the US government passes an N-Chip law putting neurochips
in the brains of the mentally ill and people with a criminal history in trying
to control them. The two main characters got tricked into making the chip and
this megacorp modified it. It has backdoors to shock the brain unconscious or
to death. People rebel and protest, and are killed by security guards and
police with neurorifles that activate the backdoor in the chip.

Free for Prime members, otherwise 99 cents. A good sci fi story but needs work
on grammar and other stuff.

~~~
Roboprog
See also:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man's_War#BrainPal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man's_War#BrainPal)

A computer grafted into your brain. Of course there are one or two back doors,
although that is not the focus of the stories.

------
malandrew
How does one get involved with the computer science aspect of measuring bodily
responses that can be used to control devices? i.e. what sites have
electronics projects where you use body sensors as the input to other
processes?

My thinking here is that this is going to be a huge area of science in the
next 5-10 years and I kind of wouldn't mind getting involved with this stuff
now as a hobby.

~~~
caycep
let me see...off the top of my head (incomplete since it's late in the
afternoon and i need a coffee)

Sensors: most CS programs seem to have them. USC has an interactive division
("ISC"? they're over in Playa Vista). UCLA seems to have some programs. The CS
people probably know who's doing what w/ the kinect and related hardware
better than I.

Northwestern has a group that's doing myoelectric signals for prosthetics.

Caltech has a lot of people working on a lot of things

The brain-machine-interface folks have groups in Berkeley/stanford/mass
general and Brown...

For DBS, Case Western, UMN, Duke, Emory have good research groups.

USCD has a huge amount of neuro/CS people - more basic stuff like
computational modeling and theoretical projects, but I think they are getting
very well known for this sort of thing.

OHSU has some collaboration with intel for health sensors/kinetics.

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octopuscell
The year 2000 predicted in 1910:
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RuSSRaUYz8I/AAAAAAAABC...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RuSSRaUYz8I/AAAAAAAABC4/WiaKbdhqWRE/s1600-h/At+the+School.jpg)

(from www.paleofuture.com)

