Oh - I haven't read the report, but I did look into the state of the art of BCI several months ago. Some things I remember:
- Arrays can receive pulses from at most 100 neurons. - Wireless devices don't have enough bandwidth to transmit the pulses from more than about 100 neurons. Even doing this requires them to pre-process the signal in a way that makes it impossible to extract single neuron signals. So you can't get more coverage with more microelectrode arrays, unless you're willing to wire yourself up to a computer with cables. - Transmitting wirelessly takes enough power to generate enough heat to be a problem, at least if the transmitter is on your head. I don't know why you can't just move the transmitter to some other part of the body, but good scientists were stymied by this problem and did not suggest moving the transmitter. - Good readings come from implants that stick lots of metal pins into the brain. This eventually kills off the neurons that it is reading from. - Sending signals to the brain is harder than reading signals from the brain. One reason, IIRC, is that the neurons receiving the signal die even faster, probably because they both are being poked, and are having electric currents sent into them. But I can't recall clearly the reasons. - We don't have any way to send or receive signals to subcortical structures such as the hypothalamus. I would say we are not at all close to having good neural I/O. The current technology, sticking hundreds of metal pins into the brain, is not a good solution in the long term, and we don't have good alternative ideas on the table. (One alternative involves snaking plastic threads through the brain's blood supply system, and sensing neuron pulses from "inside" them. The key difficulties are that you can't direct a thousand threads to precise locations; you don't know where they are once they're in place; you don't know if they move; and you may jam up the arteries if you put in more than a thousand or so.) ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=78913132-3be0e3
