Brain Machine Interface for Spinal Cord Injuries

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Nerolink is developing a brain machine interface that can decode the intention to move. The technology could help people with spinal cord injuries, or who have had strokes. We can interact with the neurolinks simply by paring them to an iphone just as you might pay your phone to a blue toothed speaker.

A few weeks ago, Elon Musk’s company Neuralink posted a job advert recruiting for a ‘clinical trial director’ to run tests of their brain-computer interface technology in humans. Neuralink’s initial aim is to implant chips in the brain that would allow people with severe spinal cord injuries to walk again. But, Musk himself has said that he believes this technology could one day be used to digitally store and replay memories. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Prof Andrew Jackson about how brain-computer interfaces actually work, where the technology is at the moment, and if in the future we could all end up communicating telepathically. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod