Implants and semi-cyborg technology

[gurujulp]

This article is from Feb 2000.

Cyborg 1.0

The chips in the implant will receive signals from the collar and send them to a computer instantaneously. For example, when I move a finger, an electronic signal travels from my brain to activate the muscles and tendons that operate my hand. The collar will pick up that signal en route. Nerve impulses will still reach the finger, but we will tap into them just as though we were listening in on a telephone line. The signal from the implant will be analog, so we’ll have to convert it to digital in order to store it in the computer. But then we will be able to manipulate it and send it back to my implant.

…

We’ll tap into my nerve fibers and try a progression of experiments once my new implant is switched on. One of the first will be to record and identify signals associated with motion. When I waggle my left index finger, it will send a corresponding signal via the implant to the computer, where it will be recorded and stored. Next, we can transmit this signal to the implant, hoping to generate an action similar to the original. I will consider the test a fantastic success if we can record a movement, then reproduce it when we send the signals back to the arm.

Pain also provides a distinctly clear electronic signal on the nervous system as it moves from its point of origin to the brain. We intend to find out what happens if that signal is transmitted to the computer and then played back again. Will I feel the same sensation, or something more akin to the phantom pains amputees “feel” in their missing limbs? Our brains associate an ache with a specific point on the body; it will also be interesting to see whether this sensation can be manipulated by slightly modifying the signal in the computer and then trying to send it to another area.

It is tremendously exciting for me, but I havent’ been able to find anything else, and in nearly nine years there must have been quite a few leaps!

Have they been classified, or am I just not much of a searcher?

Anyone have any links?

Thanks!