The Cyborg Era Begins

Looks like I'm up for a trip to the library, just came across an intriguingly titled paper: The Cyborg Era Begins by Robert F. Service in Science in the area of Bioelectronics.

Abstract: Electronic components are invading the body. In the lab, cling wrap–like circuitry draped over the hearts of test animals can track the activity of each of the heart's four chambers and kill tissue that initiate potentially deadly arrhythmias. Other arrays penetrate brain tissue to monitor the abnormal nerve firing patterns in epilepsy or induce gene expression in the brain tissue of mice. One team has even made a 3D printed bionic ear able to pick up ultrasonic bleats that humans cannot hear. These early prototypes can't produce science-fiction cyborgs; most are used in medicine. But over time, expect devices that will make us better athletes and soldiers, or even improve our complexions.

Science 7 June 2013:
Vol. 340 no. 6137 pp. 1162-1165
DOI: 10.1126/science.340.6137.1162
Robert F. Service

M. Scott Veach and I have been discussing the ethics of replacing our organs so that we can live forever, or until the batteries run down at least, in the comments of my Brain Boost Button one step closer article from last year. Ahead of the curve again it seems...

Brain Boost Button one step closer

In 1972 Orson Welles narrated a short documentary film, directed by Alex Grasshoff, based Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock.

In that film there is a man shown getting out of bed, groggily finding a 110VAC wall socket to jack-in his neural implant, and pressing a button with his thumb to charge up his cognitive co-processor brain implant for that day, the way many people feed their caffeine addiction every morning.

Now the Journal of Neural Engineering has published (Volume 9 Number 5; J. Neural Eng. 9 056012) Facilitation and restoration of cognitive function in primate prefrontal cortex by a neuroprosthesis that utilizes minicolumn-specific neural firing [PDF]. This is a simple brain implant to augment the brains processing power (currently in animal tests with monkeys), where there has been brain damage due to trauma or disease. It is the first small tentative step to the Brain Boost Button that Toffler warned us of being on the horizon in 1972...