MIND READING
By implanting thousands of electrodes in the brain of rats, scientists have analysed and decoded the signals which represent the creatures' thought patterns. The mind-reading experiment could be a key to curbing neurological diseases.
Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has a brain chip which can read thoughts.
With short swift motions, a robot is sewing. But it is not stitching fabric, nor is it using cotton sewing thread. Instead it is using an ultrathin flexible cable that is lined with thousands of electrodes, and it is very accurately sewing up to 192 electrodes per minute into the top millimetre of the brain of a rat. The task takes around 45 minutes, embedding a total of 3072 electrodes and then linking them with a microchip that is attached to the rat’s head. Scientists can now literally read the mind of the rat.
The man behind the experiment is Elon Musk, the man also responsible for the Tesla electric car, the SpaceX space programme and Adelaide’s giant Tesla battery. For two years, his company Neuralink has been developing a brain chip that is hoped to pave the way to combatting a long list of neurological conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and which might in the longer term enable control of machines by the power of thought.
The detail of the mind
The idea behind the new chip is that the microscopic electrodes each settle beside separate brain cells, recording all nerve signals sent by them. This data can then be used to identify how the brain cells communicate, mapping out the brain’s activity in greater detail than has been previously attempted. The robot sewing machine has increased the density of electrodes in an area by more than 20 times compared to similar previous experiments. This means that the procedure can be less wide-ranging in terms of the area of brain affected, with the required electrodes implemented in a smaller space. And the electrodes can do more than read out the data. With electrodes sewn into several area of the brain, their separate microchips can be linked, able to communicate and cooperate with each other. This could remedy diseases that are triggered across different areas of the brain.
Many neurological conditions are caused by damaged brain circuits, or by undesirable communications between brain areas. Doctors hope that the brain chip might help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to curb the stress reactions that