From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 05:10:42 MDT
Darpa Article from Technology Review, courtesy Clifford Pickover
<<"Mind-Machine Merger"
Technology Review (05/03) Vol. 106, No. 4, P. 38; Huang, Gregory T.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding a half-
dozen brain-machine interface projects for $24 million over two
years, and program manager Alan Rudolph says these technologies could
both restore and enhance cognitive functions, and
have "transformational consequences for defense and society." A Duke
University team led by Miguel Nicolelis is attempting to develop real-
time, two-way mind-machine communication so that animals and later
humans can perform sophisticated operations, while University of
Michigan researchers guided by Daryl Kipke are implanting electrodes
into rodent and primate brains and teaching the test animals to
control six-legged robots via the interface. Such research could one
day yield interfaces that allow people to control machines by thought
while simultaneously receiving multisensory feedback. Meanwhile, Ted
Berger of the University of Southern California is trying to build a
computer chip that could be used to bring a damaged hippocampus back
to full functionality, as well as augment memory in a healthy brain.
Wake Forest University's Sam Deadwyler, a collaborator on Berger's
project, believes that such technology could enable people to retain
memories longer or remember more and more information. Tomaso Poggio
and James DiCarlo of MIT are testing ways to tweak the sending,
receiving, and processing of sensory input to enhance a person's
communicative and perceptive faculties, perhaps to the point where
one brain will be able to wirelessly communicate with another. A key
challenge in brain-machine interface research is physically
integrating electronics and brain cells in a sustainable way,
according to John Chapin of the State University of New York
Downstate Medical Center. Wide acceptance of such breakthroughs will
depend on whether researchers can find a noninvasive technique to
connect brain to machine.
<A HREF="http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/huang0503.asp">http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/huang0503.asp> >>
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: Sat May 17 2003 - 05:25:32 MDT