© ADRIANNA WILLIAMS/CPRBIS
Neuroprosthetic research began long before it solidified as an organized academic field of study. In 1973, University of California, Los Angeles, computer scientist Jacques Vidal observed modulations of signals in the electroencephalogram of a patient and wrote in Annual Review of Biophysics and Bioengineering: “Can these observable electrical brain signals be put to work as carriers of information in man-computer communication or for the purpose of controlling such external apparatus as prosthetic devices or spaceships?”1 While we don’t yet have mind-controlled spaceships, neural control of a prosthetic device for medical applications is now becoming commonplace in labs around the world.
Neuroprosthetics can be categorized as output neural interfaces, which convert the brain’s intentions to external actions, or as input neural interfaces, which take information from ...
