Originally published March 9 2005
Matthew Nagle is the first person to receive a brain implant that reads his thoughts
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Matthew Nagle, a paralyzed quadriplegic, has learned how to move a mouse cursor with his mind thanks to an electronic implant in his brain. This implant senses movement signals in his motor cortex and translates them into the mouse motion on a screen. Scientists hope that these signals will eventually be used to create fully functional prosthetic limbs that will allow paralyzed people and amputees to use their artificial limbs as though they are normal limbs.
"Let's go again, dude."The remarkable thing about Nagle is not that he plays skillfully; it's that he can play at all.
He's playing Pong with his thoughts alone.
Inside his brain, a tiny array of microelectrodes picks up the cacophony of his neural activity; processors recognize the patterns associated with arm motions and translate them into signals that control the Pong paddle, draw with a cursor, operate a TV, and open email.
His BCI is the most sophisticated ever tested on a human being, the culmination of two decades of research in neural recording and decoding.
After we play Pong for a while, I ask Nagle to try something I'd seen him do in a video: draw a circle.
Abe Caplan, the Cyberkinetics technician overseeing the computer gear that dominates a corner of Nagle's room at New England Sinai Hospital, urges him on softly.
Nobody really knows how all that electricity and meat make a mind.
Neuroscientists can record and roughly translate the neural patterns of monkeys, and thousands of humans with Parkinson's disease and epilepsy have cerebral pacemakers, which control tremors and seizures with electrical impulses.
John Donoghue, head of neuroscience at Brown University and the founder of Cyberkinetics, eventually wants to hook BrainGate up to stimulators that can activate muscle tissue, bypassing a damaged nervous system entirely.
In theory, once you can control a computer cursor, you can do anything from drawing circles to piloting a battleship.
Before that can happen, BCIs must become safe enough to be implanted in a human, durable enough to function reliably for years, and sensitive enough to pick up distinctive neural patterns.
Nagle jumped out of the car to help his friend.
"The last thing I remember is sitting in the car," Nagle says.
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