Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Chips In Your Head - Artificial Brain Prosthesis Under Development
The idea of inserting a silicon chip into your head to augment your own capabilities is now commonplace in science fiction, thanks to the early work of writers like William Gibson. Remarkably, a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus is under development.
(From Hippocampus)
A six team, multi-laboratory effort including USC, the University of Kentucky and Wake Forest University have been working on different components of what is described as an artificial brain prosthesis. The hippocampus is an area of your brain that is important for the formation of memories; it re-encodes short-term memory so it can be stored as long-term memory. Memory disorders in aging and disease are associated with loss of function in this area; it is also often damaged as a result of head trauma, stroke and epilepsy. At present, there is no clinically efficacious treatment for a damaged hippocampus.
Professor Theodore w. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at USC, leads a team that has studied the re-encoding process in slices of hippocampus taken from rats and kept alive in nutrients. They stimulated the neurons and and studied the output patterns, and arrived at a set of equivalent mathematical functions.
Dr. John J. Granacki has been implementing these functions onto a microchip. When tested against slices of rat hippocampus, the chips are 95 percent accurate in producing the same output as live cells for a given input.
"If you were looking at the output right now, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the biological hippocampus and the microchip hippocampus," Berger said. "It looks like it's working."The next step is to work with live rats; they will deactivate the biological hippocampus and then implant the microchip. It is expected to take two or three years to create complete mathematical models of a rat hippocampus; monkey models will follow in a few more years. If all goes well, an silicon hippocampus for humans may be available within fifteen years.
The team will present their research this week at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.
Science fiction fans will remember Gibson's work in Neuromancer; he referred to chips that could be inserted into a special socket that was surgically implanted in a user's brain. The chips were called "microsofts." See Wired for the original story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/26/2004)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 3 )
Related News Stories - (" Medical ")
Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.' - Philip K. Dick, 1965.
ErythroMer Artificial Blood
'My chemists are all working on the preparation of the artificial blood.' - Dr. David H. Keller, M.D.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
Has Elon Musk Given Up On Mars?
'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'
Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
