Scientists Gingerly Tap into Brain's Power From: USA Today - 10/11/04 - page 1B By: Kevin Maney Scientists are developing technologies that read brainwave signals and translate them into actions, which could lead to neural prosthetics, among other things. Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems' Braingate is an example of such technology: Braingate has already been deployed in a quadriplegic, allowing him to control a television, open email, and play the computer game Pong using sensors implanted into his brain that feed into a computer. Although "On Intelligence" author Jeff Hawkins praises the Braingate trials as a solid step forward, he cautions that "Hooking your brain up to a machine in a way that the two could communicate rapidly and accurately is still science fiction." Braingate was inspired by research conducted at Brown University by Cyberkinetics founder John Donoghue, who implanted sensors in primate brains that picked up signals as the animals played a computer game by manipulating a mouse; the sensors fed into a computer that looked for patterns in the signals, which were then translated into mathematical models by the research team. Once the computer was trained on these models, the mouse was eliminated from the equation and the monkeys played the game by thought alone. The Braingate interface consists of 100 sensors attached to a contact lens-sized chip that is pressed into the surface of the cerebral cortex; the device can listen to as many as 100 neurons simultaneously, and the readings travel from the chip to a computer through wires. Meanwhile, Duke University researchers have also implanted sensors in primate brains to enable neural control of robotic limbs. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is pursuing a less invasive solution by funding research into brain machine interfaces that can read neural signals externally, for such potential applications as thought-controlled flight systems. Practical implementations will not become a reality until the technology is sufficiently cheap, small, and wireless, and then ethical and societal issues must be addressed. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2004-10-10-braingate-cover_x.htm