We Are All Cyborgs Now: Brain Implants that Think

A collaborative team of US scientists have developed a neural prosthesis which seems to exhibit the ability to restore lost cognitive functions -- and even to improve the function above the normal ability.

The study was performed in monkeys, but the findings will almost certainly apply to human brains, with the proper safeguards and modifications.

More from Technology Review:

The researchers used an array of electrodes to record the electrical activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex of monkeys while they performed a memory task. The prefrontal cortex is involved in decision making and directs many types of cognitive responses associated with memory or other types of information processing.

The five monkeys in the study were trained to play a matching game in which they were shown an image on a screen and then had to use hand movements to steer a cursor to that same image out of two to seven others that they were shown anywhere from one to 90 seconds later.

...From their recordings in the prefrontal cortex, the research team extrapolated a mathematical model of the electrical activity of neurons involved in the movement decision. The study authors had previously shown that this kind of mathematical model, called MIMO—short for multi-input/multi-output—could interpret and replace memories in rats with the neural implant (see "A First Step Toward a Prosthesis for Memory").

In the new study, the model took multiple signals produced by the brain layer that integrates sensory information related to the task. It then extracted the relevant information to choose a particular movement. The implant can stimulate neurons in order to influence the decision to move the hand to select the correct image.

To test the implant's ability to improve or recover the decision process, the researchers gave the monkeys cocaine intravenously, since cocaine disrupts decision making. Without the activity of the implant, cocaine-affected monkeys frequently could not choose the correct image. But with the device, their decision making was on par, if not slightly better, than normal, even under the influence of cocaine. _TechnologyReview

This research represents the early stages of a neuroscientific campaign to gain the ability to replace damaged brain tissue after trauma, stroke, tumours, and abscesses -- as well as the ability to compensate for non-functioning and atrophied tissue from degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

It will be decades more before such prostheses are able to restore brain damaged persons to normal function -- or to convert normal brains into super-brains. But even marginal and incremental improvement can make a huge difference in the lives of those with brain impairment -- and in the lives of their families and caretakers.

Study Abstract

We Are All Cyborgs Now: Soft-Material Memristor Brain Augmentation

One of the most-discussed memristor characteristic is its synaptic biomimesis. “State-of-the-art computers have difficulty mimicking the operation of the brain,” [NCSU Professor] Dickey notes. “Memristors, on the other hand, are effective at mimicking synapses. If you were interested in only mimicking brain function, then solid-state memristors would be more practical because they contain many more memory elements and are much more optimized at this point. One of the things distinguishing our work is that the device behaves like a memristor and has other properties similar to the brain. Conventional electronics tend to be rigid, 2-D, moisture-intolerant, and operate using electrons; the brain, in contrast, is soft, 3-D, wet, and operates using ions and in addition to adopting many of these properties, our device is composed of biocompatible hydrogels.” _Physorg

Human brains are marvelous biological machines, but they could be a lot better. It will prove easier to augment the human brain technologically than to replace it altogether with a cognitive machine. The invention of a soft-material, biocompatible computing architecture would allow the implantation of computing devices into the human body. North Carolina State University scientists and engineers have begun to invent what they hope can be such a material -- the soft-material memristor.

Prof. Orin Velev, Prof. Michael Dickey, and graduate students Hyung-Jun Koo and Ju-Hee So, have devised a new class of easily fabricated memristors based entirely on so-called soft matter – hydrogels doped with polyelectrolytes sandwiched with liquid metal electrodes – that operate using ionic conductance in aqueous systems rather than conventional electron transport.

...In essence, this suggests that in addition to having the potential to realize memristor-based neuromorphic structures, the polysaccharide hydrogel core of these devices is biocompatible, could possibly be interfaced with live neural and other tissue, and could lead to three-dimensional soft circuits and their in vivo operations.

...Going forward, Dickey continues, “We hope to take advantage of the fact the water-based gels in the device are biocompatible, and could in principle be integrated with biological species, such as cells, enzymes, proteins, and tissues. We also made no attempt to optimize the memory capacity in our prototypes, which is an area for improvement. Finally, we’re working to understand the subtle aspects of the operating mechanism.” _PO

They are still in the very early stages, but the possibility of an implantable soft, biocompatible brain augment is too important to overlook.

Quite a few different interfacing techniques could be used, but the optical approach would seem to be the least intrusive for tissues such as the brain, which are sensitive to electromaqnetic forces. Optical materials have high bandwidth and may be less likely to be bio-rejected than electrically conductive materials. Some people have discussed optical brain control in the context of optogenetics.

Another fascinating type of bio-to-machine interface is the piezoelectric interface being developed at Georgia Tech. The piezoelectric interface can be operated by exquisitely subtle mechanical movements, such as a muscle fibre twitch. In other words, a thought -- even a subconscious though -- could cause a pattern of muscle twitches which would activate a particular machine command or subroutine via the piezoelectric interface.

The human brain was not evolved for the ultra-long lifetime of a next level human. Cell debris accumulates, DNA repair mechanisms begin to fail, immune systems weaken, hormonal support falls off, etc. Scientists are learning a lot about how normal aging leads to memory loss in even the sharpest minded senior citizens. The intricate network of cellular connections in the brain slowly loses definition and resolving power.

Well-designed brain implants could sense this process occurring and engineer work-arounds to compensate for the changes. Long term solutions would require a rejuvenation treatment to restore -- or improve -- the resolving power of brain networks, but sometimes work-arounds are the best one can do at the time.

Where would you place your soft bio-compatible brain implant? There isn't a lot of room inside the skull itself, but implants could be placed under the scalp in a relatively unobtrusive manner as long as they were not too large. Alternatively, some women might choose to place their augments in the breast area, and some men might choose augments shaped to serve as muscle implants. If the connections to the interface are via optical fibre, the distance from anywhere on the human body to the brain is negligible, in terms of the speed of light. The interface itself would need to be placed close to the brain.

Depending upon its sophistication, an implanted brain augment could come to know how an individual's brain works quite well, over a period of time. Such augments could even learn how to simulate their hosts in a rudimentary way. The possibilities arising from such pseudo-emulation are worth considering, but perhaps not here and now. (See Old Man's War by John Scalzi)

It is important to stress that these NCSU memristors are not at all close to anything that could be used as a brain augment. But it seems to be the goal of the researchers there to develop biocompatible sensors and intelligent interfaces using these materials. It is not a long stretch from there to an implantable computer augmentation for the brain.

Although memristors are often referred to as neuromimetic or synaptomimetic, in the aggregate, memristor computing devices will function nothing like the brain. But they will not need to. They will only need to function like competent and clever computers that provide reliable memory and I/O capability for mental computations, speculations, and interfacing with the outside world -- including the ability to control machines mentally and to communicate remotely with machines and other individuals who have similar augments.

This Is Your Life

...almost imperceptibly, numbers are infiltrating the last redoubts of the personal. Sleep, exercise, sex, food, mood, location, alertness, productivity, even spiritual well-being are being tracked and measured, shared and displayed _NYT

Secret hopes, secret fears, secret compartments stowed securely around the nooks and crannies of our minds...plus the many details of our lives that we refuse to share, and push beneath the level of consciousness. Perhaps there is no one to be trusted with secrets so deep (or so shallow). Some of these secret rooms serve a useful purpose -- even if only from time to time:

"In every heart there is a room,
A sanctuary safe and strong,
To heal the wounds from lovers past,
Until a new one comes along"
— Billy Joel _Goodreads

But we can create so many secret stashes of thoughts, whims, moods, ideas, emotions, locked and stowed away, so that even we ourselves lose track of who we are and what we want to become. But wouldn't it be better -- wouldn't WE be better -- if we were able to integrate the potential energies of these hidden stashes of personal feelings and information, and free ourselves up?

Meditation, relaxation training, creative visualisation, introspection, and positive affirmations can only take us so far. We need to actually look deeply and objectively at what we are doing and how we are progressing. And that is where the new technological tools of personal and mobile telecomputing can shine.

Decades ago, it was learned that people will reveal things to a computer which they would never confide to another person. So over the years, a computer and internet industry called "self-tracking" has grown up to provide personal tools of self-knowledge and self integration, along with a number of social tools allowing people to share what they know and are learning.

The self-tracking movement, which has sprung to life over just the last couple of years, is enabled in large part by both wireless sensing devices and smart phones. Many people already employ smart phone apps to track food intake and fitness, but a new generation of apps also tracks mood, meditation, migraines and other factors. _TechnologyReview

Self tracking is not a new phenomenon -- it is as old as the maxim "the unexamined life is not worth living." But in the new world of mobile computing and advanced wireless interfacing, self tracking is quickly expanding into new territories.

* There is no end to what can be, and will be, tracked. At each QS meeting I am surprised and amazed at the unpredictable qualities that people will monitor and the clever ways in which they will attempt to quantify them. We've seen one person (or more) track one (or more) of these: sex, dates, attention span, REM sleep, car routes, daydreams, caffeine intake, people they meet, every keystroke, arithmetic speed, allergic reactions, mood, happiness, footsteps, memory recall, body motion, and every medical and health related factor one can quantify. Also check out the lifeloggers.

* There is no end to folks hoping to make a better tool to sell to self-trackers. Like the early days of personal computers, most of the tools available now are primitive and often first cobbled together by someone for their own use. That's what makes the groups so interesting. But as what works and what is desirable settles out, slickness will move in. There's lots of money watching. _Technium

We do not need to know or reveal everything about ourselves. That would be not only impossible but imprudent. What we are looking for is ways to free and direct our flows of energy to build more satisfying lives.

Jon Cousins, an Englishman who had "bouts of dreadful depression" since his 20s but managed to hide it and be reasonably functioning in the world. In his mid-50s, he finally went to see a psychiatrist, and she told him that it seemed likely that he was bipolar: Would he mind tracking his mood for three months so that the condition could be verified? Cousins couldn't find a ready way to do this, so he started using a psychological test that was a set of 20 cards with adjectives. He also tracked his scores on a graph, noting the ups and downs in his mood.

It's when Cousins is unspooling his mood graph that he reveals that he's got a touch of the magician about him (skip to 7:25 in the video). At the end of one summer, some of his friends ask to be kept informed of his mood scores, and all of a sudden his scores rise to a high plateau and stay there. As Cousins relates, the "sheer act" of knowing that other people cared about his mood had the effect of lifting his mood. He's not cured, he still has his down days and weeks, but measuring and sharing has helped, sometimes remarkably. He's moved the whole system online to a site called Moodscope. _Slate

Quantified Self is one website which is trying to monitor the many different apps for self-tracking. Here are 154 videos providing more information on some of these apps. Here is the YouTube channel for Morning Coach, one of the most popular apps.

The idea of examining one's life under a microscope is not appealing to many people. And yet the potential power of such an examination to unleash hidden strengths and talents and to increase our personal satisfaction, makes a very compelling case in favour of self-examination and quantification.

We tolerate the pathologies of quantification — a dry, abstract, mechanical type of knowledge — because the results are so powerful. Numbering things allows tests, comparisons, experiments. Numbers make problems less resonant emotionally but more tractable intellectually. In science, in business and in the more reasonable sectors of government, numbers have won fair and square.

For a long time, only one area of human activity appeared to be immune. In the cozy confines of personal life, we rarely used the power of numbers. The techniques of analysis that had proved so effective were left behind at the office at the end of the day and picked up again the next morning. The imposition, on oneself or one’s family, of a regime of objective record keeping seemed ridiculous. A journal was respectable. A spreadsheet was creepy.

And yet, almost imperceptibly, numbers are infiltrating the last redoubts of the personal. Sleep, exercise, sex, food, mood, location, alertness, productivity, even spiritual well-being are being tracked and measured, shared and displayed. _NYT

Numbers can show us more aspects of the truth about ourselves and our worlds, allowing us to make necessary changes or to do more of what works. We still need to use the forms of meditation, introspection, affirmation etc that work for us.

And we may as well admit it now: Resistance is futile. In many ways, we are all cyborgs now. Even if we do not have machine implants and replacements, almost everyone reading this relies upon information and feedback from complex machines. The best forms of this reliance enable synergism at high levels. This is your life, your cyborg life.

A Bright Clear Knowledge Threatens the Established Order

No one comprehends the world in which he is immersed. Consider it a given starting point. There are ways to bring up a child capable of a far better understanding of his surroundings, but the established order has a vested interest in keeping things the way they are.

In Australia, scientists are working on a "thinking cap" which boosts creativity. They are at a very primitive stage, as of yet. But Allan Snyder, director of the University of Sydney's Centre for the Mind, thinks he is making progress.

Another interesting Australian innovation which may lead to improved thinking and brain development, is "Mathletics." Mathletics gives learning power to families and students themselves, leaving massive and extortionate educational systems with fewer justifications for their existence.

Scientists are learning more about how the brain is connected in networks. We are learning how young brains develop and prune themselves to become more efficient over time.

We are also becoming more interventionist when things go wrong. Brain implants are becoming smaller, more sophisticated, and more biocompatible. We are seeing a cyborg future, for many.

As we learn to grow more powerful, more imaginative, and clearer thinking brains, the massive infrastructure of inter-locking institutions grows at risk. Justification for the ruinously expensive system of institutions underlying modern societies is already vanishingly weak. As humans grow smarter and less tolerant of institutional bullshit from the power structure, a revolution will be brewing.

Brain as Co-Processor: Grobyc Super-Computers?

Image Source
Computers lack a certain je ne sais quoi, which has prevented them from achieving the next level of quasi-intelligence. Humans, on the other hand, possess that ineffable quality in abundance, and some may be willing to share with computers -- to lift them up, closer to our level. Columbia University researchers are looking into the techniques of mind-sharing, with some interesting findings:

Most brain-computer interfaces are designed to help disabled people communicate or move around. A new project is using this type of interface to help computers perform tasks they can't manage on their own...[The] device, called C3Vision (cortically coupled computer vision), uses an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap to monitor brain activity as the person wearing it is shown about 10 images per second. Machine-learning algorithms trained to detect the neurological signals that signify interest in an image are used to analyze this brain activity. By monitoring these signals, the system rapidly ranks the images in terms of how interesting they appear to the viewer.

...At the speed at which it works, the conscious brain is unable to register a "hit." But the neurological visual pathways work much faster, says Sajda. The brain produces distinct electrical signals that can be detected and decoded by the 64 EEG electrodes within the cap. "It's on the edge of the subconscious," he says. _TechnologyReview

That is the key point, of course. By using the brain below the level of consciousness, the brain-computer hybrid -- or grobyc -- is able to function more quickly than the conscious mind, and on a higher level than a mere computer.

PDF Image Source PDF
Researchers have worked with grobycs using insect brains as controllers for several years. But it is only recently that the "mind-reading" technology has become available which allows the human subconscious -- much faster than the conscious -- to function as a computer controller.

This is the key difference between a human cyborg and a human grobyc. In the human cyborg, the human uses machine augmentation to perform tasks it could not otherwise perform. In the human grobyc, the machine uses the human brain as an adjunct to machine operation. The person's conscious mind (if any) need not be aware of the low level activity at all.

Doug Hofstadter has been writing about this slippery component of the human mind for over 30 years. It is central to the human mind's ability to think generatively and autonomously -- although outside input is crucial. It is the phenomenon of metaphorical stacking down to the embodied, non-verbal levels. It one of many critical features of mammalian general intelligence that AI researchers have ignored for over 60 years to their detriment.

Because the field of AI has neglected something so central to intelligence for so long, scientists are forced to use human brains as co-processors, and reduce human minds to grobyc status. Imagine: "My life as grobyc."

It certainly opens up entire new avenues for commerce and enterprise, to those forward thinkers looking to seize an under valued and under utilised resource to turn a profit. In the future, humans may sell the use of their subconscious minds to Google while they are sleeping, providing the mega-corporation with computational powers of search and subtle "slippery discrimination" its competition could only dream of.

More ominously, governments may use the subconscious minds of the masses to find better ways to control them en masse. This is an application to which an Idiocracy is ideally suited, unfortunately. Think of it as "following the ratings" or "following the polls", but on rocket fuel, and taken to the lowest common denominator.

Bonus: NYT article profiling "Portraits of the Mind", beautiful images of the brain
In the game of intelligence, the score is: Natural Evolution 1 AI Design 0

fMRI Neurofeedback Opening Windows into the Brain

TechnologyReviewWhen most psychologists think of neurofeedback, they think of EEG feedback. Certainly EEG feedback has accomplished some amazing clinical and scientific results, and is even beginning to show up in mainstream gaming applications. But the state of the art in neurofeedback and brain-machine interfacing is shifting to fMRI, due to a superior spatial resolution over the entire brain. (the actual state of the art may be combined EEG plus fMRI, but let's just look at fMRI for now)

U Penn researchers recently used fMRI neurofeedback in an attempt to discover if they could teach cocaine addicts to control certain brain functions.

Childress asked 11 healthy controls and three cocaine addicts to watch a feedback screen while alternately envisioning two 30-second scenarios: Repeatedly swatting a tennis ball to someone, and navigating from room to room in a familiar place. By analyzing whole-brain activity, researchers found that a part of the brain called the supplementary motor area was most active during an imagined game of tennis. They then linked this pattern to an upward movement of a computer cursor. They did the same with the navigation task, linking it to downward movement of the cursor. After four cycles or fewer—less than five minutes of training—the subjects had learned to alternate between the two states of mind, as well as associate each one with its corresponding cursor position. From there onward, they could move the cursor up or down with their thoughts.

...The researchers found that both addicts and healthy people could control their state of mind equally well, something Childress says is encouraging for future studies. "The patients who have trouble controlling their craving could still demonstrate control over this sort of non-emotional test," she says. That confirms what earlier studies had suggested: Addicts' cognitive control issues are not linked to more general thinking, but instead limited to more emotionally charged thoughts, like cravings.

However, Childress's team will need to develop specialized tasks to figure out how to apply this to addiction and other disorders. For therapy, "You really need feedback from localized regions that have to do with their disease, and have people learn to control them," says Rainer Goebel, a professor of psychology at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands who has done similar work with depression patients. _TechnologyReview

As mentioned parenthetically above, the combination of EEG plus fMRI neurofeedback offers a superior tool, in that both spatial and time resolutions are optimised. When using neurofeedback to facilitate a brain-machine interface, one wants to optimise time resolution. When using neurofeedback to train in controlling brain responses, one would want optimal spatial resolution. As training programs become more specialised, each small improvement in spatial and temporal resolution will be treasured by researchers.

Powerful EEG neurofeedback tools have been used for assisting in brain rehabilitation after brain trauma or infarct, in treating severe autism, for treating depression, and in other neuro-psychiatric conditions. Clinicians are typically more daring than researchers when using such relatively safe tools, given the difference between the clinical environment and the research culture. Researchers are quite cautious, and appear almost plodding in their careful step by step approach to scientific knowledge. Clinicians, on the other hand, are often desperate to help in cases which seem hopeless. They are willing to take intuitive leaps, and work with what they find.

The difference between attempting to build a structure of knowledge from the bottom up, brick by brick, vs. the sudden achievement of disconnected but profound findings when taking a leap of faith, contributes to the wall of incomprehension which often grows between the research and the applied branches of a given science.

As fMRI neurofeedback tools (and combined fMRI-EEG tools) eventually move from the hospital and lab into the outpatient clinical setting, the possibilities of sophisticated feedback tools combined with VR techniques in normal brains, should be astounding. Non-invasive, non-toxic tools such as neurofeedback, offer little risk in comparison with surgical, pharmaceutical, invasive electrical, and radiologic tools that might be used in a clinical setting. Clinicians typically feel free to try new and unconventional approaches when there is little to lose and much to gain.

Al Fin Futurists place the transformative potential of advanced neurofeedback technologies at the highest setting.

Fly-by-Wire Brains: Melt in Place Brain Machine Interfaces

The stretchable, ultrathin design would make for better brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which record brain activity in paralyzed patients and translate thoughts into movements of computer cursors or robotic arms. Because it’s so thin and flexible, a silk-based device could reach regions of the brain that were previously inaccessible. _Wired

Wired
Brain scientists are making progress in the design of better brain-machine interfaces. The newest version -- pictured above -- is a surface mount electrode array that conforms to the curvature of the underlying brain, "melting" in place for better connection.

Now a group of researchers is building biocompatible electronics on thin, flexible substrates. The group hopes to create neural interfaces that take higher-resolution measurements than what's available today without irritating or scarring brain tissue.

"Biocompatibility is a major challenge for new generations of medical implants," says Brian Litt, professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. "We wanted to make devices that are ultrathin and can be inserted into the brain through small holes in the skull, and be made out of materials that are biocompatible," he says. Litt is working with researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who are building high-performance flexible electronics from silicon and other conventional materials on substrates of biodegradable, mechanically strong silk films provided by researchers at Tufts University.

This week in the journal Nature Materials, the team reports using a silk electrode device to measure electrical activity from the surface of the brain in cats. Silk is mechanically strong--that means the films can be rolled up and inserted through a small hole in the skull--yet can dissolve into harmless biomolecules over time. When it's placed on brain tissue and wetted with saline, a silk film will shrink-wrap around the surface of the brain, bringing electrodes with it into the wrinkles of the tissue. Conventional surface electrode arrays can't reach these crevices, which make up a large amount of the brain's surface area. _MITTechReview

More on this new approach from Wired:

The research team printed electrode arrays onto silk films that disintegrate after they are placed on the brain’s surface and flushed with saline. They’re just 2.5 microns thick, so thin that they need to rest on a platform so they don’t fall apart during fabrication or implantation. After the silk film dissolves, the array wraps around the curves on the brain.

...The scientists would like to extend their findings by making fully dissolvable implantable electronics for monitoring and stimulating tissue growth. They have also developed rolled-up devices, which they could deliver to the brain without making large holes in the skull during surgery. Eventually, they hope to adapt the technology for retinal and cochlear implants and to treat patients with a wide range of psychiatric and neurological diseases. _Wired

This approach is certainly better than the scar-inducing metallic electrodes that penetrate -- and inadvertently destroy -- deep brain tissue. But it is a far cry from the elegant targeted self-assembly process by which the brain originally develops, and constantly re-forms itself throughout its lifetime.

A surface-mount conformable biocompatible electrode array is only the starting point. Such a surface mounted array would naturally constitute a "base station" for sending targeted and self-assembling probes safely into the brain to connect with specific brain pathways and grey matter nuclei.

The U Penn researchers have developed a fascinating early incarnation of a system that will grow far more sophisticated and complex as the tools from biotech, nanotech, materials science, and information technology become available.

Micro-Nubbin Neuron-Chip Interface

This "micro-nubbin" nerve interface-chip from IMEC provides convenient "docking stations" for nerve processes to interface. The chip is meant to serve as an experimental "eavesdropper" -- to listen in on communication between neurons. Initially, it will provide a surface for nerves to grow and interface. Scientists hope to learn something from recording how networks of neurons communicate among themselves.

IMEC presents a unique microchip with microscopic nail structures that enable close communication between the electronics and biological cells. The new chip is a mass-producible, easy-to-use tool in electrophysiology research, for example for fundamental research on the functioning and dysfunctioning of the brain. Each micronail structure serves as a close contact-point for one cell, and contains an electrode that can very accurately record and trigger in real-time the electrical activity of an individual electrogenic cell in a network.


...IMEC's new micronail chip is the ideal instrument to study the communication mechanisms between cells. The electrodes in IMEC's micronail chip are downsized to the size of cells and even smaller. They consist of tiny nail structures made of a metal stem covered with an oxide layer, and a conductive (e.g. gold or titaniumnitride) tip. When cells are applied on the chip surface, their cell membrane strongly engulfs the nail structures, thereby realizing an intimate contact with the electrode. This very close contact improves the signal-to-interference ratio enabling precise recording of electrical signals and electrical stimulation of single cells. _SD

This research is fairly mundane, as described. But Al Fin neuroscientists understand where the science is heading, and are quite excited.

The micro-nubbin chips will need further miniaturisation, and will have to be made biocompatible. In the lab, neuronal and glial proto-cells will be cultured, in contact with the micro-nubbins. The chip + precursor cells + selected growth factors will be implanted intra-cranially, and anchored to the underside of the skull. The cultured and anchored cells will send processes into the white matter of the brain via an intricate system of artificial portals -- in essence engineered artificial white matter paths from the interface to merge with established white matter pathways.   These soft tissue penetrations of the cortex would be composed of the individual's own cells, and firmly immersed within soft tissue so as not to cause damage to other structures.

Al Fin neuroscientists envision roughly a dozen of these micro-nubbin brain/machine interfaces at specific areas of the skull -- depending upon the brain systems to be interfaced. Each nubbin-hub interface will allow for roughly a thousand or more neuron-chip interface points. Visual, auditory, olfactory, motor, and memory systems will be targeted -- among others.

Clearly the initial applications will be military. First, to provide prosthetic control of artificial limbs, and to provide optic and auditory input to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have suffered brain damage. As the operational ability of the chips improves, they will be used to compensate for subtler forms of brain damage and functional impairment in military injuries.

As the chips are perfected they will be used to create nerve-machine interfacing with advanced weapons systems and remote reconnaissance systems. Then the chips will be implanted into elite combat infantry operatives.

Imagine being able to see well beyond the electromagnetic spectrum of visible light. Or to be able to hear well beyond the auditory spectrum of 20 Hz to 20 KHz. Having the ability to distinguish subtle smells better than a bloodhound. Those would be simple beginnings with much more complex capabilities downloaded later -- as improved versions are developed.

Brain-machine interfacing will allow for a wide variety of expanded human senses and function, as well as rich virtual reality and augmented reality settings. Auxiliary memory and calculation systems as well as other advantages of complex interfacing with highly advanced information systems, would also be available.

Before all these things can be done, such micro-nubbin chips will have to become "smart enough" to understand neuronal code.  That is the purpose of the initial lab studies with cultured neuronal nets.

A Brave New World of Custom Brain Augments

How do you want your brain customised? With a brain-machine interface? With genetic treatments? With smart drugs? With implanted nano-circuits? Or with stem cell colony implants ready to repair any damage or deficit?

All of those modifications are on the doorstep, ringing the front bell. The world's neuroscientists and philosophers are finally taking this reality seriously. A group of interested persons met in Berlin recently to discuss the implications of the brave new brain technologies.

The next stage of brainpower enhancement could be technological - through genetic engineering or brain prostheses. Because the gene variants pivotal to intellectual brilliance have yet to be discovered, boosting brainpower by altering genes may still be some way off, or even impossible. Prostheses are much closer, especially as the technology for wiring brains into computers is already being tested (see "Dawn of the cyborgs"). Indeed, futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil believes the time when humans merge with machines will arrive as early as 2045 (New Scientist, 9 May, p 26).

It won't be long before "clip-on" computer aids become available for everybody, says Andy Clark, a pro-enhancement philosopher at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. These could be anything from memory aids to the ability to "search" for information stored in your brain. "We'll get a flowering of brain augmentations, some seeping through from the disabled community," he says. "I see them becoming fashion items, a bit like choosing clothing." Clark says that even today, devices such as head-up displays on spectacles or simply being adept at using computer programs like Photoshop come close to being physical extensions of people's minds.

...There are, however, simple alternatives to technological enhancement that would achieve many of the same goals, says Dupré: education and child-rearing. Moreover, he thinks such changes can be heritable via epigenetics - the reprogramming of gene expression in offspring by exposure to cultural, maternal and environmental influences. Dupré points to a study in rats showing that good maternal care was passed on largely because it permanently altered gene activity in the brains of the pups. _NewScientist

There is a wide range of potential brain mod even without using invasive implants, stimulators, and genetic alterations. Humans have always had access to meditation techniques (including laughter) which may well build useful brain circuits. More recent developments such as neurofeedback expand the options for creative brain modification immensely. Combining brain machine interfaces with nano-implants, crafted meditative techniques, and neurofeedback offers some quite sophisticated possibilities for supercharging specific brain circuits.

Genetic modification (combined with creative stem cell therapies) is the long term goal, once the techniques are improved. The mainstream intent will be to provide a level playing field for all the world's people -- including those populations that seem stuck at average IQs around 70 to 80 points. These people have no hope of developing or maintaining a technological civilisation, and depend upon outsiders and market dominant minorities for their advanced goods and services.

Eventually, advanced germ cell line genetic brain augmentation techniques will be applied to persons who are already above average intelligence. Soon afterward, clear separations in group proficiencies will develop and begin to widen.

It is not likely that such separation will begin along racial lines, but rather along other affiliative lines such as professions or special interest groups. Societies whose more functional and accomplished members work well together regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion etc will probably be the most creative in terms of applying the new technologies.

If such quasi-elites -- by competencies -- have experienced enough societal shocks they are likely to jump beyond today's ethically queasy resistance to brain augmentation in the interest of survival. The threat of a new dark age brought on by incompetent world governments would be enough to focus even the most bleeding heart.

The horses are already out, and they are just now talking about closing the barn door. Someone take them some coffee.

Google Wants to Have Sex With Your Brain

Google wants to hurry up the brave new world. Google is not only involved in X Prize promotion of new technology, including the Google Lunar X Prize, but is also starting its own venture capital company to boost new ideas with direct capital involvement.

One intriguing idea is to take atmospheric CO2 and turn it into methane, like this group at Penn State is doing. There are oodles of similar bioenergy projects that Google Ventures might consider boosting.

I suspect Google is also interested in extending its search function beyond the internet into the human brain itself. To achieve "brain search", Google will need to better understand the human brain's "inference engine."

But one of Google's ultimate aims is almost certainly the development of a reliable brain-machine interface allowing seamless interaction of humans, computers, and robots.

Of course, with humans linked to the virtual and robotic worlds via new Google brain-machine interfaces, several areas of human productivity and creativity will skyrocket -- including machine design, architecture, various new art media, drug design, and a great deal more. Putting the human mind inside powerful machines will make a huge difference to many fields.

But then, the natural tendency is for humans to want to play games with their new toys and new powers. And one of the favourite games that humans play is the game of sex. Humans will no doubt learn to play that game with robots and virtual worlds as soon as possible.

Millions of people are addicted to their computers as it is. Imagine the situation when virtual worlds and robotic interaction and proxy allow persons to travel around the world instantly, or to experience life on the moon via robot proxy? How many humans will fall in love with their real or virtual robots (sexual or otherwise)? It will happen in many ways.

And Google wants to be there when it does. Google wants to have sex with your brain. Because after that, you will have a difficult time refusing it anything at all.