How might biohacking actually work?

May 16, 2020 7:57 AM

Let's say hypothetically that we develop technology to "plug in" our brains to computer implants that enhance (or hinder) our cognition. How might that actually work?

I'm writing a science fiction story and I need some guidance from the neuroscientists of Metafilter. How would something like this work, hypothetically? I assume the technology doesn't exist but I'm looking for something like, it would manipulate these neuro-receptors, connect to these parts of the brain, etc. What's the latest in science about how we could connect computers to our brains? I'm not too concerned about how feasible any of these technologies are in reality, but rather just trying to base my fictional world on some real research.

posted by deathpanels to Science & Nature (5 answers total)

Here's a video of someone explaining how he plugs his prothesis directly into a synthesizer and essentially plays the synthesizer with his brain. It's incredible.
posted by thebots at 8:02 AM on May 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

You might find this article interesting.
posted by terretu at 8:24 AM on May 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

We can already hook up monkeys to control robotic arms directly through brain interfaces.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:50 AM on May 16, 2020

This paper on a visual prosthesis is fascinating especially because the project started in 1968. The system uses a camera, computer, and an implant of electrodes. It seems pretty successful, but yet still far away from common use.
posted by kyliej at 10:55 AM on May 16, 2020

Best answer: Neuron firing seems to be the basic unit of information processing in the brain (at least according to Edelman 2008, Computing the Mind) so I think ideally, you'd want electrodes sitting on the surface of the neuron itself- able to pick up the tiny electrical signal it outputs. The smaller neurons are around 4 microns wide- so these electrodes would have to be really small. The company that Elon Musk set up in 2017 (neuralink) basically hired the guys who developed 'dust-sized' sensors discusssed on Metafilter here. I believe that these sensors are still a little bit too big- but they're definitely getting in the ball park.

Also worth noting is that the corpus callosum manages to fully share information between the two brain hemispheres with around 200-300 million axons (the fibers that carry the signal from the neuron). So I reckon if you could achieve that number of sensors, you could probably pick up information from the entire brain. The big difficulty, obviously, is getting the electrodes onto the neurons. Note that you can't use the blood stream, because of the blood-brain barrier. I think the best method would be to release the electrodes into the interstitial fluid that surrounds the neurons, and use some coordinate tracking system to guide the sensors into place.

The other problem is keeping the sensors charged enough to send a wireless signal to some kind of monitor. But I wonder if, theoretically, they could recharge themselves from the neurons? I'd be interested to see if anyone sees other obvious problems I haven't thought of.
posted by leibniz at 2:43 AM on May 17, 2020