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 ")
Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches
'...a capsule which he placed against his wrist.' - Philip K. Dick, 1960.
'Droplet' Battery Microscale Power Pack
'...a power pack the size of a pea.' - Alfred Bester, 1956.
Who Needs Asimov's 'Proteus' When You Can Have Pangolins?
'The Proteus was still falling, still shrinking...' - Isaac Asimov, 1966.
Self-Powered Piezoelectric Nanotattoos
'...she has had a subdermal pattern of micro-channels implanted.' - Paul Di Filippo, 1985.
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
18 Wheels Mutant Centipede Vehicle
'If a centipede were a dinosaur and made of metal to boot...'
Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches
'...a capsule which he placed against his wrist.'
Robotic Hands Have More Than One Use
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Space Weather To Universe Weather
'It radiates outward in a cone which, by the time it has reached our section of space, is many lightyears across.'
That's MOXIE! Terraforming Mars Baby Steps
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock.'
'No, I'm Not A Robot' - Robot
'... with a weird simulation of life, the ten forked ends of each arm commenced a rattling pressing of the buttons.'
Missing Jet Finally Found
Ah, what could have been - still in the future.
Philippines Coast Guard Cuts Chinese Barrier
'Each of the four areas is enclosed by a sonic wall...'
Barista Robot Perfects Latte Swirl With Multi-DOF Wriggle
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Vendetta 2023 All-Terrain Skateboard Could Use Neal Stephenson's Smartwheels
'If you surf over a bump... If you surf over a pothole...'
Safe Street Rebel Autonomous Vehicle Luddites And Schachner's 1931 Robot-Deranger
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...'
The Electric Balance Bicycle And The Decline Of Western Civilization
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed...'
'Droplet' Battery Microscale Power Pack
'...a power pack the size of a pea.'
ARX-5 Doing Robot Arm Dancing
It's Data's day - at last.
CD, DVD Bit Rot And PKD's Civic Notification Distorter
'...copy two of the original document no longer can be superimposed on copy one.'
Inbiodroid Prometheus 2.0 Telepresence Avatar Robot
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...
