Neuralink owner Elon Musk wants to use brain implants to read people’s minds – something experts consider unlikely. However, technology can have transformative impacts on human health. “The future is going to be strange,” said Elon Muskem in 2020, explaining the potential uses of brain implants developed by his neurotechnology company Neuralink. For the past seven years, the company has been developing a computer chip designed to be implanted in the brain, where it monitors the activity of thousands of neurons. The chip – officially considered a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) – consists of a tiny probe containing more than 3,000 electrodes attached to flexible wires thinner than a human hair. Musk wants to connect the brain with computers to allow the download of information and memories from the depths of the mind, as in the 1999 science fiction film The Matrix. In addition to using the technology to try to treat conditions like blindness and paralysis, Musk has expressed ambitions to the Neuralink to achieve human telepathy, which he said would help humanity prevail in a war against artificial intelligence. Musk also said that he wants technology to provide people with “oversight”. Science fiction or reality? Is this viable? Short answer: no. “We cannot read people’s minds. The amount of information we can decode from the brain is very limited”, says Giacomo Valle, a neural engineer at the University of Chicago, in the United States. Juan Alvaro Gallego, an ICC researcher at Imperial College London in the UK, agrees. “The fundamental problem is that we really don’t know where or how thoughts are stored in the brain. We can’t read thoughts if we don’t understand the neuroscience behind them,” he told DW. Clinical Uses of ICCs Musk unveiled Neuralink technology in 2019, showing a pig with a chip implanted in its brain and video of a monkey playing pong with its mind. But the potential of ICCs goes far beyond playing animals. According to Gallego, the technology was initially developed to help people paralyzed by spinal injuries or conditions such as locked-in syndrome – when a patient is fully conscious but unable to move any part of the body except the eyes – to communicate. “If you (could) translate your internal communication into words on a computer, it would be life changing,” Gallego said. In this type of case, ICCs are designed to record electrical signals from neurons in the motor cortex and then send the signals to a computer where they are displayed as text. Normally, the motor cortex is not involved in thinking. Instead, it’s where movement instructions are sent to the body, such as the movements of the tongue and jaw muscles when speaking. What the electrodes actually register is a motor plane – more precisely, the end result of all the processing in different parts of the brain (sensory, linguistic, cognitive) needed to move or speak. So, BCIs don’t actually record your thoughts, but rather the brain’s plan to move a finger, a leg, or open your mouth to make a sound. “Scientists have also shown that they can read the motor cortex’s intention to draw a letter,” Gallero said. “Using complex modeling (with the computer connected), this allowed paralyzed participants to type 10 words per minute, which was a breakthrough.” BCIs and sensations Another advance occurred in 2016, when the then US president, Barack Obama, shook Nathan Copeland’s robotic hand. Copeland, who was paralyzed after a car accident, felt Obama’s handshake as if they were touching skin to skin. “This demonstrated a different capacity than the CCIs. Instead of using electrodes to register the brain and interpret the intended movements, they stimulated the brain with small currents to produce sensations”, explains Gallego. In Copeland’s case, an ICC called the Utah Array was implanted in his brain to improve the functioning of a deficient part of his nervous system. The device, produced by a Neuralink rival, was implanted in his sensory cortex and connected to sensors at the tip of his robotic hand. When Copeland shook Obama’s hand, these sensors sent signals causing electrodes in the sensory cortex to stimulate the “hand” region of the brain, allowing Copeland to “feel” the president’s hand. These new capabilities of CCIs represent the next generation of deep brain stimulation, a treatment that involves implanting electrodes in areas of the brain to help people with movement disorders. “These technologies have been around for some time. Deep brain stimulation has been used to help hundreds of thousands of people with Parkinson’s disease since the 1990s,” explains Gallego. Brain surgery for everyone? For now, ICCs like the Utah Array are only being used in special cases like Copeland’s, and Neuralink’s technology has only been tested on animals. “All clinical applications of ICCs are still in the research phase and have not yet been implemented in clinical practice”, highlights Valle. Neuralink tried to get approval from US federal drug regulators to test its technology in humans last year, but it was dealt a blow when authorities rejected the application, citing heightened safety concerns. The device consists of 96 small flexible probes that must be inserted individually into the brain. Brain surgery is no joke. Even if the invasive procedure required to connect an ICC to the brain goes well, the potential for infection or immune “rejection” of the device remains long after implantation. Musk’s company is still seeking permission to conduct human clinical trials later this year. The Birth of Neuroethics In the long run, Valle said, CCIs raise “a variety of ethical concerns” that will need to be carefully considered by researchers, companies, funding agencies, regulators and users themselves. Technology is giving rise to a new field of moral investigation: neuroethics. This is where the discussions become more science fiction. “For example, what are the consequences of privacy breaches when the data in question relates to people’s thoughts? How can we ensure that lack of access does not exacerbate social inequality? brain?”, points out Valle. After all, it is science fiction’s role to prepare us for what may come in the future. Warnings about surveillance and technological control were present in early 20th century novels such as Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932) and 1984 (George Orwell, 1949). Do we hear them? Author: Fred Schwaller
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