A diagram of how the Kernel prosthetic might work. (Image courtesy of Kernel.)
Today, people are living longer than ever. In fact, the average life span for a person born in 2015 is 71.5 years, but this increase in lifespan also brings an increase in cases of memory disorders like dementia and Alzheimer’s in later age.
In a bid to improve the outcomes for those who suffer from memory disorders, Kernel has proposed that a brain prosthetic could be surgically implanted in the brains of memory patients to stimulate their hippocampus, the area of the brain thought to control memory, emotion and the autonomic nervous system.
Berger’s approach to building a prosthetic is based on his previous research into mapping the patterns of how neurons fire in the hippocampus. After gathering data on these patterns, Berger and his colleagues created a mathematical model that can take an input (read: sensory information from the world) and produce a neural firing pattern that can produce a memory.
In practice, the prosthetic would use Berger’s algorithms in correlation with electrodes implanted into the brain to record signals being generated during memory development. Once an electrode detects a neuron firing it would feed that information to a central processor that would generate an appropriate neural firing pattern directed at the patient’s hippocampus.
In an interview with IEEE Spectrum, Berger stated that, eventually a brain prosthetic could be used to help memory patients by taking their “memory codes, enhanc[ing] them, and put[ting] them back into the brain”.
The fruits of Berger’s research, let alone a Kernel-created product, are still a long way off but legitimate organizations like DARPA have been pushing for the development of this kind of technology for years. Today, robotic prosthetics are being controlled by the human mind, so it does seem possible that we’ll eventually be able to augment our brains in a number of different ways.
But before that happens engineers and ethicists might want to put to their heads together to see where (or if) we should draw the line in augmenting our minds. There are a lot of questions that have to be answered before more powerful brain prosthetics than what Kernel is proposing make it to market, but a couple that I’m most interested in figuring out are:
- Is there a point when a memory being created and processed by non-biological sensors completely takes over and renders an individual’s thoughts as “not their own” or synthetic?
- Is this type of machine-human interaction a natural step in our evolutionary history?
For more cranial augmentations, read about engineering implantable devices for the brain.