theotherguy
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The first fully functional Input/Output chip for the human brain is about to be tested in live animals. Scientists at USC under the lead of Theodore Berger have over the past 8 years been individually stimulating nerons in the brains of monkies and rats to determine the "neural code" that the brain uses, and have succeeded in writing a programming language that can convert those signals into raw binary data, and vice versa. The system uses lasers to stimulate neurons rather than direct current, and receives signals from direct contact.
They plan to use it to allow patients with amnesia and alzheimers to remember things more easily, since it replaces an area of the brain used to transfer memories.
Its function will be to mimic the structure of the nerve tissue in the hippocampus by placing multiple electrodes on an array, to listen for incoming neuron activity, and then to stimulate electrodes to deliver the appropriate output to the rest of the brain ? potentially restoring memory function for patients with tissue damage.
Although it only has medical uses for now, the implications of figuring out the language of neurons are enormous. The chip could potentially replace any area of the brain, even in the areas involved in sensing stimuli. I'm thinking the matrix here
http://www.neural-prosthesis.com/