Hi Cho, can I ask you some questions about brain implants?

Hi John, sure, ask away 😉                                                                       

I’m collaborating with a journalist, Manuel, on a piece about the connections between science and Sci-Fi

Interesting, there’s a lot of hype an misinformation out there, this sounds useful. 🙂

Indeed! Specifically, I’d like to go over one example of an implant from a book

OK, I’ve read a lot of sci-fi as a student, I hope I know it … 😄           

It’s called “The Turing Option” by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky

I know Minsky of course!, he founded MIT’s AI laboratory!                 

Good! So they co-wrote this book about a brain implant that can help heal brain damage

Cool, I don’t know the book, but I wish we had such a thing. How would this device work?

Basically they implant a tiny supercomputer in the damaged area, which would reconnect severed neurons

That does sound like sci-fi indeed: the question is how?. 😏             

They use something called “PNEP film chips—programmable neural electron pathway devices”

these are “coated with living embryonic human nerve cells”, first attached to an external computer, later to the implant

This actually starts to sound realistic, Minsky knew what he was doing.

So this checks out? We can do something like this nowadays?

Yes and no. Forget about the scale of the problem, we can’t deal with millions of neurons yet

and even a supercomputer can’t keep up with the brain, let alone an implantable one!

OK the problems of scale, but in principle? Repairing the brain?

Maybe. We can inject stem-cells and these would indeed reform connections in a damaged area,

and we can implant a chip in the brain to receive and send impulses, “read and write” if you like.

The trick would be to link those: guiding regrowth with AI.                
In principle, that should be possible.                         

Great! Thank you so much!

So which new brain-things are your going to discuss  😉                   

Some medical technology, but mainly BCI’s

BCI’s???   😯                                                                                                 

Brain Computer Interfaces

I know what it means, I was just surprised  😄                                     

Why? 😊

There’s a limited number of legitimate applications in medicine, like brain-controlled prosthetics, but for now it is mostly hype

What do you mean?

Like the Neuralink, and getting a brain implant so you can change the channel on your TV

That’s not actually how it is marketed you know … and not all BCI require surgery

Fine, I’m just a bit skeptical about it for now. 😏                                  

That’s OK, we’re writing about the future possibilities, so we’re allowed a bit of science fiction here

So, learning stuff overnight without having to study and augmentation

A little bit of that, but also some very different stuff

Such as?                                                                                                       

Besides BCI’s we talk about possibilities for healing the brain through stem cell transplants

OK, that is something quite different indeed …                                    

Or using brain organoids to replace pieces of the brain affected by a stroke or cancer removal

Now those are indeed very interesting to me! Send me the article and I’ll happily go through it

Sending as we speak! 😉

The last topic I wanted to discuss with you is brain damage and diseases

I suppose you also have the classics here … Gage, Tan, HM, Clive Wearing

Not so fast! Yes, Phineas Gage we have, “Tan” … that’s Louis Leborgne , right?

Right, and “HM” is Henry Molaison 😉                                                   

Oh, of course, we have him! Everyone knows him now because of the movie “Memento”.

I liked that movie because it is surprisingly accurate 😊                    

Can I quote you on that? 😊

Sure, most blockbusters deal with memory loss in totally implausible ways, so … 👍

We actually have him in the article for multiple reasons.

Obviously: like Leborgne, he too suffered from epileptic seizures, and his memory loss was due to the operation to “cure” them

Indeed! We go into detail about why splitting the brain in half sometimes works

Yeah, it isn’t really a “cure” though 😏                                                          

That’s what we try to point out, but it is similar to brain cancer: better to cut it out

I see your point, the lesser evil, but it is frustrating                             

What is? 

Not actually being able to heal it, only to treat it with such coarse interventions

The next article actually is about the future and the brain

Meaning new medical technologies?                                                      

Yes and no … 😉