Brain Implants of the Future

What are Brain Implants?

A stroke or severe head injury can incapacitate a person for the rest of their life, leaving them with permanent brain damage, severely inhibiting their cognitive functions and causing lower quality of life. For years there have been methods of managing or slowly repairing brain damage, through arduous rehab or experimental surgery, but those processes are often far from guaranteed and can be a very tough road for the subjects to manage. That’s where the potential for brain implants comes in.

Brain implants, or neural implants as they are sometimes referred to, are devices that directly connect to the subject’s brain, either by being placed on the brain surface or being attached to the cortex, and designed to circumvent the areas of the brain that were damaged or have become dysfunctional because of a brain injury or disease. Additionally, implants have begun to be more common in those who suffer from disorders such as Parkinson’s or even clinical depression.

The implants work by electronically stimulating, recording, or blocking signals from neurons within the brain. In doing so, the implant is ideally able to restore or supplement the brain’s capacity via electronics that are placed directly into the nervous system. Currently the implants are at a stage in their development in which they are only recommended for people suffering from severe brain injuries or incapacities, and there is a significant risk for the subjects, but the research and development is evolving constantly. In the near future, brain implants could become increasingly common and utilized to allow the brain to operate at its highest capacity.

The technology for brain implants is derived from some technologies that we already have commonly available today. Devices such as Cochlear or retinal implants utilize the same principles that researchers are currently attempting to apply to the development of brain implants; external devices that capture sounds and images, process them, and use the results to stimulate the body to approximate the it’s natural reaction given the situation.

Currently, there are implants being developed and perfected that have the potential to treat those who suffer from Parkinson’s via an implant that sends electrical pulses into the brain and activates some of the functions involved in motor control. This allows those who suffer from Parkinson’s to potentially regain control of their speech. Furthermore, electrical stimulation is also being explored and tested in regards to improving memory by directly stimulating the hippocampus.

How might Brain Implants be utilized in the future?

Part of the inspiration for the current development of brain implants is to compete with the ever-expanding influence of artificial intelligence. According to renowned inventor and business magnate Elon Musk, artificial intelligence is growing and learning so rapidly that humans are at risk of being outpaced by the technology, and in his mind one of the ways to maintain our supremacy is to adapt artificial intelligence to augment the human brain. His proposed idea would add another layer to the human mind, a layer of artificial intelligence that works in conjunction with your brain and body to allow humans to function at their best.

For now, though, brain implants are mostly being studied for medical purposes and what they can do for those who have suffered severe injuries or incapacitations that don’t allow them to have complete control over their body or mind. Currently implants that function by reading and interpreting the brain’s signals are being explored for their potential use for those who have suffered paralysis. The idea being that in time the devices would read and decipher the signals being sent from the brain, then provide the stimulation to the brain that would allow the subject to act upon the message that is being sent.

In order for these devices to make the jump from only being used in the most severe cases to being utilized more regularly there are still some issues that need to be figured out. Currently, scientists and engineers are working on developing a way for the brain implants to be more safely inserted or attached the user’s brain. As it stands now, the only method of attaching the implant is to drill small holes through the subject’s skull and insert the electrodes. This is a highly dangerous procedure in part because of the risk of infection and the possibility of bleeding occurring within the brain. There have been some developments, such as a skull cap that reads brainwaves, but it is far less effective at reading signals than the drilling method.

Brain implants likely will not be perfected for at least the next decade or two, but they are not as far off as it may seem. Potentially by the end of the century it will become the norm that humans are wired into the cloud and have all the information they need wired directly into their brain, allowing them function at their highest capacity and providing a solution to not only catastrophic injuries or brain diseases, but also counteracting the aging process by assisting with memory, concentration, focus, and all other cognitive functions.