-Caveat Lector- >From Worldlink, http://www.worldlink.co.uk/stories/storyReader$844 - THE cyborg COMETH Microchip implants may be the next best thing to a miracle cure for disabilities. Michael Brooks describes the medical benefits of fusing the powers of man and machine Brooks is a features editor at New Scientist magazine and a regular contributor to World Link In science fiction, they call it a cyborg. In medicine, they call it progress. The future, as envisioned by science-fiction writers, is already among us: people and machines are becoming, quite literally, inseparable. Researchers are gradually learning how to meld together electronic circuitry, such as microchips, and biological tissue. In a decade or so you might buy the latest hardware upgrade and implant it in your head. Illustration by John McFaul More than 20,000 people worldwide already have such implants. These circuits are known as cochlear implants, and can restore hearing to people with profound hearing loss. Cochlear implants were first conceived some 30 years ago by French researchers. Whereas standard hearing aids amplify sounds, cochlear implants turn sound into electrical signals, much like a microphone does. The signals are then sent to an implanted microchip, which stimulates nerve fibres in the inner ear. When stimulated, these nerves send a signal to the brain that is interpreted as sound. Normally, these nerve fibres are stimulated by hair cells responding to vibrations. But where the hairs don't do their job, the electrical signal from a cochlear implant can step in. Because the implants are using the latest electronics technology, they are sensitive enough to make speech sounds recognisable. Stanford University neurosurgeon Gary Heit is going even further into the head and implanting microchips in people's brains. It's no weird thought-control experiment, or an attempt to allow them to influence the electronics. It's quite simply a medical procedure that can revolutionise someone's life. Heit's patients suffer from debilitating tremors, similar to those caused by Parkinson's disease. These tremors can prevent them from being capable of doing anything for themselves - even buttoning up a shirt becomes an impossible task. But when they receive a chip implant in the area of the brain known as the hypothalamus, everything changes. Flick a switch to turn the chip on and it emits signals that interfere with the brain signals causing the tremor. The patient's hands suddenly stop shaking. The relief, after years of impairment, is enough to make some of his patients immediately burst into tears. MICROCHIP MIRACLES Heit is one of a growing band of researchers who believes that much more can and will be done in harnessing electronics to repair damage to the human body. He believes, for example, that actor Christopher Reeve, who suffered severe spinal injuries in a riding accident, could walk again next year if all the research knowledge in the world were pooled. Researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago, for instance, have invented a microcomputer system that sends electrical pulses to a patient's legs, causing the muscles to contract. Using a walker for balance, people paralysed from the waist down can stand up from a sitting position and walk short distances. Some have walked as far as a mile using the technology. It needs smoothing and optimising, but the fundamentals are done. Another team, based in Europe, is doing similar work. Last year, they enabled a paraplegic to walk using a chip connected to fine wires in his legs. When activated - by pressing buttons on his walking frame - the wires stimulated his leg muscles and allowed him to take steps. Heit's chip implant could be tailored to talk directly with these muscle stimulators. It may eventually be possible that the thought of walking will be enough to get people moving again. Think "walk", and off you go. That might sound like a step too far, but the first astonishing move toward such thought-controlled electronics has already been taken. THOUGHT CONTROL Last year, researchers at Northwestern University Medical School wired up a lamprey's brain to a set of wheels. The brain was able to move the wheels. It was the first demonstration of how an animal's nervous system and a machine could work together in the future. Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi's team took a lamprey's brain and part of its spinal cord and connected them to light detectors. Then they mounted the brain on what was effectively a trolley with wheels that was controlled by electrical inputs. The signal to these inputs were connected directly to the brain. When the researchers shined light onto the optical sensors, the light converted into electrical signals that fed straight into the lamprey's brain. Because they had connected into the brain's vestibular system - the part that gives information about orientation and balance - the lamprey brain interpreted the signals as information about, for instance, which way was up or down. The brain then sent out its own electrical signals in response. Normally, these would have gone to the animal's muscles, but instead they fed directly into the trolley's wheels. The result from the flashes of light was that the lamprey brain scooted the trolley about the laboratory. It all sounds rather ghoulish, but the experiment was a huge leap toward understanding what can possibly be done with two-way neural implants. Researchers are learning to interface electronic hardware and software with biological "wetware". As well as giving lessons in controlling movement, the lamprey brain could also teach researchers about how to cope with damage to the central nervous system. If some of the lamprey's brain or nervous-system cells get damaged, connections between the brain's neurons seem to re-arrange themselves so that the lamprey can still swim normally. Understanding that re-arrangement could be a vital step toward dealing with damage to the spinal cord, for instance. And it could also show how we might adapt to having a silicon prosthetic inserted: it may be possible that we could rewire ourselves to cope with microchip implants that enable our bodies to do otherwise impossible things. Researchers have a long way to go toward understanding whether all forms of blindness can be assisted with microchip implants, but the initial progress has been astonishing Of course, that kind of ability is still far into the future, but another science-fiction-like ability is coming remarkably close. Artificial vision is now a reality for many people, thanks to microchips implanted in the retina. Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, have pioneered a way for people with vision problems to regain at least some of their ability to see. The retina, the "photographic plate" at the back of the eye, is composed of light-sensitive photoreceptors that create an electrical charge whenever light hits them. This charge then passes down the optical nerve to the brain. Each of these signals is interpreted in the brain and the total is turned into what we see. But in some cases of blindness, such as that suffered by singer Stevie Wonder, the photoreceptors simply don't respond to light. So, the researchers thought, why not replace them with artificial light detectors? As a result, they have developed a kind of miniature digital camera that is placed on the surface of the retina. The camera relays information about the light that hits it to a microchip implanted nearby. This chip then delivers a signal that is fed back to the retina, giving it a big kick that stimulates it into action. Then, as normal, a signal goes down the optic nerve and sight is at least partially restored. The process has been tested on animals and humans, and the results are looking promising. Faced with the fact that the brain is still largely a mystery to researchers, the ability to get people seeing again after certain types of blindness is a significant achievement. Researchers still have a long way to go toward understanding whether all forms of blindness can be assisted with microchip implants, but the initial progress has astonished many people. Richard Normann's research group at the University of Utah is developing an implant for the brain that will tap directly into the visual cortex of the brain. The aim is to stimulate the brain into seeing, even when blindness is profound. It's a difficult task, but Normann is already seeing some success. The group's other interests are in understanding how the brain and the nervous system can be manipulated to control problems such as chronic pain and incontinence. They are even investigating how the brain interprets signals from the nerve cells in the nose, so that people who have lost the sense of smell might benefit from an "olfactory" implant. Some researchers are even going beyond the medical benefits of turning human beings into cyborgs. AN ELECTRONIC COUPLING Kevin Warwick, a cybernetics researcher at the University of Reading, UK, works with neurosurgeons in an attempt to improve the medical implants that can help paralysed people to walk. But he also plans to use his human-machine interactions to take things further, even creating a kind of telepathy. He is drawing up plans to have microchips implanted in himself and his wife. These chips will be connected into their respective nervous systems, but they will also be able to talk to each other. Warwick believes this might allow him and his wife to share a direct link with each other's brain and nerve signals. Warwick is not afraid of the consequences of having microchips inserted into his body. He has undergone surgery to have chips implanted before. These allowed machines around him - a door lock and his personal computer, for instance - to respond to his presence. For Warwick, the age of the cyborg is already here. His gimmicks do have a serious point to make, he says. The things we can do with microchips on their own are amazing: they operate a vast range of machines and equipment, and are now an indispensable part of the modern world. Couple those abilities with the unique properties of biological matter, and a whole new world will open up. There's everything to gain, and nothing to fear. Perhaps. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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