This week’s edition of ABC Radio All in the Mind is a special investigation into brain-computer interfaces, the science of putting computer equipment under direct neurocognitive control.
This could either be done by non-invasively reading brain activity, or in the case of people with disorders that affect their movement, by implanting electrode arrays into the brain directly.
Artist Pro Hart died of it, so did actor David Niven – the nightmarish legacy of Motor Neurone disease which paralyses the body as the disease progresses. Communication can become restricted to an eye-blink, with the mind remaining intact and active in a frozen body. But the technological cutting edge of the brain-computer interface could make a difference, and help people communicate with the outside world using the only thing they have left…their mind. Turn on the TV, switch off the lights and even send emails, just by thinking about it? No, it’s not hocus-pocus.
Link to AITM edition on ‘The Brain Computer Interface’ with audio.