Would you be ready to have a microchip transplant inside your brain?

[OtherDalfite]

A good example of what I would like to see is showcased in Accel World, an anime about virtual reality based games that connect directly to your conciousness. The idea is that via a neural interface, a removable computer can be 'hacked' to provide the user with superhuman abilities such as augmented reaction time. This is done by 'overclocking' the thought process, thus allowing the user to experience an altered perception of reality. So it would be like pressing 'pause', thinking about your next move, then resuming to execute the perfect move.

I don't know. Overclocking your own brain seems a bit scary. That, and what if you accidentally burnt the chip out? You could accidentally give yourself brain damage or even cause yourself to die. But predicting the perfect reaction to a situation would be pretty great.

[Nuke]

brain doesnt run on a clock, it is totally asynchronous. you cant just crank it up (well you can speed it up a little but it involves substances that will probibly kill you and is illegal almost everywhere).

but something like an i/o chip would be pretty cool. cpu can talk to the chip, and the chip can talk to your brain (actually it would probibly be more of a chipset, you would want chips in places like the occipital lobe and the motor cortex, speech center, etc). the whole system of implants would talk to a host chip and that chip would talk to the computer via some kind of interface, such as wifi. this also allows things like radio telepathy as well as a control interface for computers and several other kinds of machines and vehicles. of course you might as well throw in a cpu in there as well so you can preform math and logic at a superhuman rate.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Nuke

[jwenting]

Definately not!! Though its a cool and useful idea, the sad truth is there are ppl out there who who take advantage of this and be able to hack into them or install viruses. This could range from annoying to potentialy fatal.

can you say mind control? Every dictator out there would love those things and instantly make them mandatory, programmed to supply mindless obedience.

Political activists would in countries where they're trying to win elections hack into them to get wearers to vote for their sponsors against their will, so they can become those dictators.

[Ben Kerman]

Definately not!! Though its a cool and useful idea, the sad truth is there are ppl out there who who take advantage of this and be able to hack into them or install viruses. This could range from annoying to potentialy fatal.

Who says it would be connected to the outside? You could just have a purely internal chip that just serves the purpose of assisting your brain.

[Sirrobert]

I don't care if it improves my eyesight or cures the cold, they're putting nothing electronic in my body.

Ever heard of a pacemaker?

It's funny to look at the 2 'sides' of this here.

There are the people who call out 'OMG my brain will get hacked' without defining what a chip actually DOES.

Ya know 'chip' doesn't automaticly mean 'internet connection' right? I know everything is connected these days, but it doesn't HAVE to be.

Hell, there are alot of people that ALREADY have chips in theyr brains. Connected to electrodes Deep Brain Stimulation is exactly that. A subdermal chip, with electrodes going into the brain. It can be controled with a remote that your doctor has, to adjust the settings. 'Hacking' that would be like 'hacking' an old analoge TV. Not possible unles you are standing behind the viewer with your own remote

Even if you had a chip with internet connection, a chip is JUST A CHIP.

To 'control a body' you'd first need it to overwrite EVERY SIGNAL in the brain. We don't even know what those signals mean, let alone overwrite them into something that makes sense. And again, the chip would need to be purpose BUILD FOR THAT. A chip that's designed to monitor vital functions (as we'll probably see soon) would do NOTHING if you hacked it, or connected it to someone's computer and gave them admin acces. It's nothing more than a sensor.

The first chips would be nothing more than sensors. First in chronical patients to give the doctor permanent acces to vital signs, followed by the same kinds of sensors implanted in healty people. Refusing them will be synchronus to refusing vaccins 'cause it's gods will', or 'cause they poison my kids'

And lastly at the Deus Ex: HR example. The whole 'hacking into a persons chip to control them' works because of a number of VERY specific things: First, the victims had to go and have a special chip (a whole plot point is that you can choise to NOT get the chip, and than you are not effected by the effect), designed specificly for this job, installed. Second, the chip did not control the brain. It controled OTHER IMPLANTS. If you had just the chip, there would be no effect

[jwenting]

a pacemaker has a very limited functionality, and doesn't interface with your brain at all, in fact it doesn't interface with anything in your central nervous system.

It operates by sending electric currents that stimulate the heart muscles.

And yes, I'd worry if I were given one that could be controlled remotely by a kid with a radio transmitter in the next room.

Something that can directly interface with the brain and control higher brain functions, over my dead body.

[SuperWeegee4000]

Something that can directly interface with the brain and control higher brain functions, over my dead body.

Agreed.

A WILD TENCHAR APPEARED

[Sirrobert]

a pacemaker has a very limited functionality, and doesn't interface with your brain at all, in fact it doesn't interface with anything in your central nervous system.

It operates by sending electric currents that stimulate the heart muscles.

And yes, I'd worry if I were given one that could be controlled remotely by a kid with a radio transmitter in the next room.

Something that can directly interface with the brain and control higher brain functions, over my dead body.

And where exactly do you asume that a chip in your brain will have some omnipotent function? It's just 1 chip.

A pacemaker is a machine. It has a chip

Like I said, if we ever have 'chips' in our brain, the first things will be monitors. Nothing more. Hell, they'll probably be subdermal chips with sensors reaching down into the brain itselfs. Gues what? You can't control anything with a sensor.

We will probably never see anything that can directly interfere with direct brain functions without a crapton of implants, designed for this specific function, already implanted in every area of the brain. And that won't happen until we understand how the brain actually WORKS. That's ganna be a LONG time

Your brain isn't some computer with 1 central commandpoint that you can hack and steer everything. Every region makes it's own decisions, and all those inputs come tougether to form the final action

[sal_vager]

That one chip would be connected by tens of thousands of monofilament wires to various areas of your mind

[Sirrobert]

All filtered by neurons. And quite a big part of the brain works with hormones, not with electricity

And I feel like a broken record here, but a sensor isn't connected to anything

[Nuke]

That one chip would be connected by tens of thousands of monofilament wires to various areas of your mind

just use a high speed serial bus (one or two differential pairs). run it through each chip in the network. with a host chip that provides a hypodermal interface (probibly optical, electromagnetic, or short range rf directly through the skin), and the electrode grids placed atop relevant parts of the brain. it will also be the most expensive cable laying project ever in terms of cost per inch, and will require removing large bits of skull. power everything with an implanted glucose fuel cell (they run on blood sugar).

the procedure needs a top notch neurosurgeon and is non trivial. it will be very expensive, so only the rich and powerful will have them. once it is installed you must learn to use the new interface. the brain needs to re-wire itself to use the new implants (but it will eventually be as trivial as moving a finger). early implantation in adolescence or early adulthood would probibly yeild the best results (you want it in there when the brain stops physically growing, but while the brain is still young and pliable).

then comes the problems, if you need to upgrade or if your chip network breaks down or they need to be removed for any reason, your brain might be so used to the implants that you might have a trouble functioning without them. if you swap to a new set of chips you will need to go through the same relearning process again.

All filtered by neurons. And quite a big part of the brain works with hormones, not with electricity

And I feel like a broken record here, but a sensor isn't connected to anything

you could probibly add chemical detectors as well as electrodes to detect chemical messages and measure neurotransmitter levels.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Nuke

[Sirrobert]

Thank you for a pritty good example why we won't see any 'control your brain' chips anytime soon.

I didn't even think about the learning problem. After you grew up with it, it might aswel be a piece of your brain. A piece your body can't possibly repair on it's own

[Themohawkninja]

Would we need to give the people anti-rejection drugs, or do those only apply to organic implants/transplants?

[Sirrobert]

Like the ones we already give to transplant patients?

That would depend. Currently the body rejects implants because they do not match your exact DNA. The adeptive imune system is 'trained' during development of each individual Tcell to recognize your own body's peptides (parts of proteins). Peptides are presented on all living cells.

Cells presenting the wrong peptides are concidered foreign.

Ofcourse it's way more complex, as each human has basicly the same proteins (we only differ in some very small ways. Everyone still has the same hemoglobine), and the actual reason for organ rejection is a little more complex, but this is the basis.

To prevent rejection, transplant patients take drugs that supress the imune system. Combined with this they'll need to take wide effect antibiotica and stuf like that. And if the mismatch is to big, you are still in significant risk of rejection.

Now obviously machines are not cells, so they won't have this specific problem with rejection. They are however forgein materials, and I have no doubt the imune system will try to remove them in some way. But that will probably mostly be through the innate imume system (macrophages and stuf), rather than adeptive imune system. So the reaction would be much smaller. With simple sensors and stuf, the problem might even be limited to corrosion of the sensor itself. That's easy to fix, just get a new sensor (the chip itself is subdermal, outside of the skull). But for implants that have to merge WITH your brain, like Nuke said, this would be a serieus problem.

Now you can't supress the inate imune system. It's important for everything that your imune system does, including fighting virusses. We currently do not have any way of fighting virusses, other than 'get in bed and sick out'.

Supress the inate imune system, and a simply flu would go from a simple flu to a life threatning disease (like it already is for people with imune system problems).

Hell, even without any problems entering your body, the inate imune system plays important roles with cleaning up after processes that occure normally in your body.

Long story short: We'd need to find a way to make the body recognize such an implant as something that belongs there

[Themohawkninja]

Long story short: We'd need to find a way to make the body recognize such an implant as something that belongs there

Synthesize the person's DNA, and create an organic membrane around as much of the implant as you can?

[Nuke]

pyrolytic carbon electrodes might be the answer, its already used in a lot of medical applications. blood does not clot on its surface and should be conductive enough to make a neural interface.

[Mozziedoo]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution fan here, I would love a microchip in my brain. Heck, why not the full package?

[G'th]

I, being the sort that has little to spend with his money (mostly because he doesn't spend most of his paycheck every week unlike a lot of other people his age), would jump at literally chance of augmented reality.

So if putting some kind of micro or nanochip inside my brain means I get AR capability, then hell yeah!

[koshelenkovv]

I do not see how a chip in my head can make my life better.

So it's unnecessary and should not be installed.

[crazyewok]

Hell no! Knowing the NSA they would figure out a way to access it and record your thoughts!

[Idobox]

First of all, there are currently issues with rejection of materials. Some materials are bio-compatible, some aren't, and some were believed to be when they were not, which has been an issue for all sorts of imlants these past 10 years. It's not completely sorted yet, and the main issue is that metallic electrodes tend to dissolve when you pass currents through them (electro-plating style). But I don't doubt we will one day solve that.

In terms of what such a chip can do, for the moment, it's not really crazy, but they can allow pretty good vision if implanted on the retina, much coarser on the cortex, crappy hearing on the cochlea and terrible hearing for the brainstem. There are some research on putting electrodes on the motor and somatosensory (sense of touch) cortex, but it's not very popular since EEG can get results (much noiser though) without putting a hole in your skull. They can't control your thoughts, make you a math genius or browse wikipedia with your mind. We don't even know where to begin to do this kind of things.

Implantation is traumatic and will impair whatever function you already had.

Finally, wireless and networked don't mean the same thing. These type of things usually uses magnetic coupling, a wireless technology with ranges in cm, so nobody can hack you from a distance. Connecting that type of thing to a network is useless and dangerous, so it's not done, ever.

Now, all that being said, and assuming these things get significantly better, I would definitely get one to compensate for any handicap. I would also consider it if it expanded my abilities in a useful way, for example bionic eyes with super zoom and able to see in infrared and UV, as well as differentiate polarized light could be really cool. Still, it would probably be expensive and dangerous, so I would need some pretty serious reason to do it.

If you're interested in turning yourself into a cyborg, implanting iron shaving in your finger tips allows you to detect magnetic fields, both DC and AC. Your finger tips are very sensitive and can detect the tiny forces applied on the metal.

[3_bit]

I'd much rather have Borg Nanoprobes.

[minerman30]

I'd only get it if the only bodily processes it could control were vision and sight. I'd find out I was being hacked pretty quickly if my sense of touch didn't sync up with those.

[Zuni]

Image what a tyran could do if everybody had these little chips inside them

Imagine what a tyrant could do if they had loads of weapons, tanks and followers!

Oh, wait...

That's actually most countries at this point.