Communications of the ACM
If We Put Computers in Our Brains, Strange Things Might Happen to Our Minds
Considering the unexpected effects of brain-computer interfaces.
Credit: U.S. Army
Your brain is amazingly adaptable. It can regulate your heart rate, have nightmares, remember a song you last heard decades ago from just a few notes and even pick up an entirely new language.
It can do all that because brains are plastic: able to rewire the pathways they use as they pick up new skills or respond to differences in the world around them. That neuroplasticity is the brain's way of keeping up with changes to the external environment or to the body itself. But soon our brains could face their biggest challenge: being connected to a computer through a brain-computer interface (BCI), something that could change how we view the world, our own bodies, and even the speed at which we can produce changes in the world.
Most invasive (that is, inside the skull) brain-computer interfaces involve putting electrodes onto the surface of the brain to pick up the electrical signals that pass through the tissue. Unsurprisingly, on a basic biological level, brains don't take well to having bits of silicon stuck on them. They form what's called fibrotic tissue -- a small scar around the electrode itself. While that may sound concerning, although BCI technology is still relatively novel, that physical scarring reaction of the brain isn't thought to cause any major disruption to the brain that users should be worried about.
But other changes that happen in the brain with BCI use could be far more wide reaching, and fascinating, than a lump of hardened tissue.
From ZDNet
View Full Article
No entries found