Brain Chip Could Help Paralyzed People

It sounds like something out of a sci-fi film, but we could actually have implanted brain transmitters enabling limb movement for those afflicted by paralysis!

British scientists are currently working on being able to use tiny microchips to sense nerve messages, to decode the signals from the brain, and actually turn thought into movement. And this could be a reality in as little as five years!

People who have sustained injury to the spinal cord and are paralyzed could soon get help from robotic devices that in a sense, restores the connection between brain and limbs that was severed by their paralysis.

They may actually regain the ability to move their limbs at will, with the help of the technology currently being worked on, scientists are very hopeful.

Much of the actual technology is already around – “mind-reading” chips have earlier been implanted into the brains of monkeys, which have enabled the operation of robot arms or movement of a cursor on a computer screen. It will of course be a challenge to make this technology wireless and to solve issues of bandwidth.

There is also the suggested idea of replacing the connection in the limb with an artificial link, however it is thought that the robotic system may be more practical.