Plug into the Future

The future of brain technology may lay in its integration with artificial intelligence (A.I.).  For now, the prospects of a brain on the wire appears to be as a treatment for epilepsy.  With the development of better electrodes that measure small electrical fields developed by neurons, devices can be created that will correct a malfunctioning brain.

Old fashioned brain sensing technology could soon be obsolete.

A press release from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, describes a study on the cutting edge of this research.

“‘Electrodes are already being used to measure brain cell activity related to seizures in epilepsy patients, as well as planning surgical procedures. In the future, LFP signals [blogger's note: LFP, or Low Field Potential, means that the signals are very weak, but are still full of information.] measured by implanted electrodes could detect an impending epilepsy seizure and stop it by injecting a suitable electrical current,’ [Doctor Gaute] Einevoll says.”

As a piece of brainy tech, what Dr. Einevoll describes here is more like an implanted automatic defibrillator than a link to a computer intelligence.  Though, as electrodes get smaller, and more sensitive to brain cell ‘chatter,’ the possibility of an implanted cap of electrodes listening in becomes all too real.

Aside from healing us, what it could teach us could prove more groundbreaking.  The development of the ultimate form of artificial intelligence, one that perfectly mimics our own, may come from implant technology.  The more we begin to understand the brain, the more easily a computer could be programmed to think like us — perhaps by learning to understand the conversations our neurons use now.