The brain-computer interface can even allow brain-computer interface pioneers to feel the warmth of their loved one’s hands in a handshake.
“This technology ... picks up signals directly from individual neurons, takes that data out of the brain, does something cool with it, sometimes brings it back into the brain, and the effective outcome is that ... a tetraplegic patient can move a prosthetic arm around, grab a glass or a canned bottle of water, and then drink themselves again for the first time since having tragic accidents,” Marcus Gerhardt, co-founder and CEO at Utah-based Blackrock Neurotech,.
Blackrock Neurotech works with neuroscience researchers at Johns Hopkins, Caltech, and Brown and has been building brain-computer interface devices for over a decade, with some patients getting implants all the way back in 2012. “For example, Nathan Copeland has sensors on the front of his prosthetic hand, and he shakes a hand and he feels that the hand is warm because that warm temperature is sent right back through into his brain, telling him that the prosthetic hand that he is controlling is touching a warm hand,” Gerhardt says. “So it’s restoring the sense of touch and of feeling.”
There’s one pioneer who is now back at university and is studying to be an accountant, and Blackrock is looking for ways to connect him directly to Excel.