Imagine controlling a computer with just your mind. It sounds like a frivolous and futuristic convenience, but such technology could provide disabled or "locked in" patients the ability to communicate and gain control over their environments. A number of companies and researchers are developing these so-called brain-machine interfaces (BMIs, also called brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs), and though the technology is in its infancy, progress has been made.
Last December, Foxborough, Mass.-based Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems announced that its BrainGate implantable electrode array enabled a patient with quadriplegia to control a computer and television set using only his thoughts. The 24-year-old man, the first of five patients approved by the FDA to test BrainGate in clinical trials, can also read E-mail and play video games using the device.
Others are using similar technologies to understand how brain signals control movement or respond to internal and external stimuli. Such experiments have the potential ...
