Turning thoughts into action
From: Medical Design - 03/2007 - page 36
By: Victoria Reitz

Imagine a machine that can sense what you think and act on your commands.
Sound scary? Not so for people with paralyzed limbs or debilitating
conditions such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).
Machines like this could let them communicate and even move artificial limbs. 

Many diseases that paralyze people leave their brains unaffected. These
people can think about moving or talking but can't because they have problems
in their spinal cord, nerves, muscles, or maybe they don't have a limb. 

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a connection. They record electrical
activity in the brain and translate it into real commands such as moving a
computer cursor or controlling an electric wheelchair. BCIs, already
implanted in humans and animals, have potential to change lives. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.medicaldesign.com/articles/ID/13448

Links:
Center for Neuroengineering, Duke University
http://www.duke.edu/~ch/Neuroeng/Neuro.htm

Cyberkinetics
http://www.cyberkinetics.com

Neural Signals
http://www.neuralsignals.com

Wadsworth Center
http://www.bciresearch.org

Vicki Reitz's Blog on Brain Computer Interfaces
http://forums.medicaldesign.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1851026981/m/1961079082