Will it someday be possible to directly connect the brain to machines (like computers)? If yes, when and how?

Question

Will it someday be possible to directly connect the human brain to machines (like computers)? If yes, when and how?

This question was asked at the Dropping Knowledge event on 9th September by Nicolas Flagey, 27, Cachan, France.

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Answer 1

Most of the answers here are focussing on connection of the brain to various external sensors or motive devices, things that would replace our eyes and ears, our hands and feet. But how to interface our thoughts? There are devices that can pick up electrical activity in the brain and give some indication of what areas are being stimulated, but this is a long way from being able to read detailed thoughts or act as external storage for memories, or giving us additional reasoning power.

I think that we will only be able to realise the dream of full computer/brain interaction through advances in nanotechnology. If nanobots carrying miniaturised communication devices can be insinuated into our neurons, this would give those neurons an additional interface similar to dendrites or axons. These interfaces could connect to virtual neurons implemented in software on an external system.

This is not a trivial exercise by any means, not the least difficult aspect of which would be the issue of the communication medium they would employ to exchange information with the external system. If you had a nanobot in every neuron you'd need 100 billion communication channels, and they'd each need enough broadcast power to overcome background noise. The nanobots might instead have to communicate via chemical relays that aggregate their output and feed it out to some external interface. Though it might be possible for the nanobots to recieve inputs via radio frequencies.

Another communication possibility that might have come of age by the time we are able to do this kind of thing is quantum communication channels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_communication_channel

Then there's the mattter of how the nanobots actually interface with the neurons that they are within. You might need to prime the neurons via genetic modification so that the required structures grow within the cells.

Heat dissipation will be a challenge. Perhaps there might be some means of bleeding off excess heat in a way that is actually useful to the cell, or at least storing the energy in some kind of waste material that can be cleaned up by the body's natural garbage collection mechanisms.

If you can make the external host system that is running the software based virtual neurons capable of adaption and self-modification in the same way the human brain is, then it can provide an environment for the test subject's mind to expand into. This could ultimately lead to whole-mind migration into cyberspace.

Naturally, this will be considered far too dangerous for human test subjects at first, so the first creatures to have their minds expanded in this way will be animals. This will lead to some interesting ethical dilemmas when we have animal test subjects whose cybernetically enhanched minds are more powerful than those who are conducting tests on them.

Addendum: I've seen a lot of smart-alecky responses here bemoaning the stupidity of the question, because we already have brain-machine integration going on.

I think these smart-alecks have really missed the point, though the question could have been worded a little more carefully. The interfaces we can build today, impressive though they are, are just TINKER TOYS compared with full machine-mind integration or full-mind migration to a non-biological platform!

Answer 2

Yes...
anything is possible
;-)

When, not sure, depends if certant people or rules keep holding back creativity (like patens LOL)

I would say with no limitations we could have the technology within 10 years.

How?
Wow, well I'm no expert.
But I know our brain is like a network of transitters, if we could tap into the electrical impulses of it and figure out what electrical impulses do what we could make the brain signal to other things that can carry that electrical impulse and that machine can then be programed to recongnize a certain type/degree of impluse and move or react accordingly.

That's my best guess.

After all the language we use for machines are 1's and 0's
We would have to brake down what ever we learn about the brain into a way that can be represented mathmatically so that we can interact with machanical devices.

...
And who says we need our brain, why not try out our nerves, or mucle movements, or anything else for that matter, the limits are endless

:)


The real Q is are we ready for it or even for that matter mature enough for such a technology? I mean, I don't want someone who doesn't like me to transmit a techno virus and then make my whole brain or nervus system for that matter go out of wack! LOL. I also don't want BIG BROTHER knowing all my moves and where I am at any given moment. It's bad enough they're sticking chips in WalMart clothing and next our passports, they're NUTS (well all control freaks are nuts I say)!!!

Cya!
::: Peace :::

Answer 3

Yeah, that is like so been done allready, are you people in isolation tank under the water?
Telephone 1890s person talked into electronic thing and sound carried on a wire to a long ways away. Human brain was connected to a machine.
The first one was the Steam Engine, french man made one in 1689, Human Hand was connected to a machine.
Oh you mean like automaton, Yes, I pulled a lever and money came out of a machine, that was neato.it was 1937, still neato.
Thinking Spherically

Answer 4

the computer will read the brain waves and the vibrations and the aura of the body it will tell your temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar level and list and toxic substance in the body. It will show the mood and the level of medication in the body and what meds may be needed. It will print a menu for the day based on the needs of the body , considering taste and allergies, It will print the exact horoscope of the person with the transits of the day interpreted. It will suggest the needed amount and kind of exercise. The person will lay their hand on the screen for 1 minute and the machine will read each individual in the household. The computer will be part of a central communication center in the home. One machine will be a large tv, a telephone, a printer , a fax, and have all the software needed for some jobs. More people will work at home, solving the traffic problems of big cities.All stores will have excellent cameras to show the goods and they will be ordered over line and delivered immediately. The computer will keep a list of regular needs and sizes and color preferences. It will also be the alarm clock. Within 15 years.

Answer 5

Not practical. The neural map of a persons brain is unique so, although the areas of the brain responsible for particular aspects of a person will not change in general, what those pathways represent could be markedly different. This is even more extreme in cases of Hydrocephalus where the amount of brain mass is drastically reduced, yet the people with this condition do not, in the main, show the expected proportional reduction in brain function.

What is possible is to link nerve inputs and outputs to a computer, but these signals go into and out of the parts of the brain that have already adapted to process them. Bypassing these and going direct to the brain would not be practical.

Answer 6

It's already been done.

It's not like The Matrix or anything like that, but paralytics have had electrical sensors attached to them, possibly outside the skull, and they can control a computer cursor and make it move.

As to how, you'll just have to Google it. Or you could contact the University of Florida's division of Man-Machine Studies.

Answer 7

Too late.
It's already been done.
Think of some high-quality artificial limbs.
And there was a famous experiment a few years ago where a professor at Reading university had an interface socket surgically placed on his arm, and connected to his central nervous system.
He was able to remotely control artificial limbs etc over a networked computer system using only the power of thought.

Answer 8

Yes.

My uncle already did this 20 /30 years ago, working as a biophysicist for Chapel Hill University, of NC., in the realm of body statistics. His findings and experiments have shown it's possible. It might be worth placing an inquiry with the medical universities that do that kind of research.

But, my short answer is "yes."

Answer 9

where have you been? they've already done that. at least 40 years in the making people!

and you've obviously haven't been in a fighter jet.

READ ABOUT THESE THINGS FIRST! before you implement silly and uneducated assumptions like this question!

are you like ted stevens? mr. "the internet tubes are clogged" guy? i hope you're not being funded by anyone.... you're a rip off!

the paralized man who controls the mouse with his thoughts... the man and woman who lost their limbs who now have robotic limbs that are controlled by nerve impulses connected to the brain...

eye guidance systems for computers using brain impulses connected to the eye... so on.

well this proves you guys are just all talk and no knowledge.. so much for the dropping.. knowledge part.

give this up and start providing something real to the world... hell a burger king flunky who just shuffles meat all day provides more.

at least he already knew about this topic... he was one of the many who talked about the technology being provided for the blind, paralized, amputees.. mentally challenged, tourettes sufferers, parkinsons patients...

where have you been? don't you read the news? hell all you got to do is turn on the television!

slaps forehead!

there's computers that help provide inpulses to the brain to enable the brain to send signals back through out the nerve network to help spasmatic people control their actions so on.. i could go on forever about these applications involving the mind and computers.

in short you're not enlightening anyone or helping diffuse knowledge or power of it... you're flinging morons!

why is it that the ignorant speak the loudest?

Answer 10

Well it is already possible, there are computters that can already see what part of your brain that your using, why cant it cipher what your saying aswell.

Infact one human brain is more complex than every computer in the world put together. In 2060, it has been estimated that a computer will be more complex than the avereage 25 year old brain. Know there's a bit of dropping knowledge for you.