Brain-Machine Interface

MIT Technology Review 2001 – Ongoing experiments in other labs are showing that this idea is credible. At Emory University, neurologist Phillip Kennedy has helped severely paralyzed people communicate via a brain implant that allows them to move a cursor on a computer screen (see “Mind Over Muscles,” TR March/April 2000).

And implants may also shed light on some of the brain’s unresolved mysteries. Nicolelis and other neuroscientists still know relatively little about how the electrical and chemical signals emitted by the brain’s millions of neurons let us perceive color and smell, or give rise to the precise movements of Brazilian soccer players-whose photos adorn the walls of the So Paolo native’s office.

“We don’t have a finished model of how the brain works,” says Nicolelis. “All we have are first impressions.” More