BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE | Re-imagining your brain |

We all love sci-fi, well who doesn't.  remember the movies “Avatar”, “matrix” well I am sure that you must have watched one of these movies at least once or if you are a big fan as I am, then maybe a lot many times.

It really amazed as well as fascinated me that how was jack sully in “avatar” able to control a 10 feet tall alien and experience all that the alien body did, all that from a distant lab, with a weird machine.

Similarly, but quite differently there was this movie matrix in which neo dives into a virtual world of machines with his brain connected those sophisticated machines and he too controls his avatar in the virtual world. Like his brain was interacting with the machine in a way which seems quite far away,

Or maybe not, in both the above examples we saw how brain-computer interface can be at its very best i.e transmitting signals directly to someone's brain that would allow them to see, hear or feel specific sensory inputs. Consider the potential to manipulate computers or machinery with nothing more than a thought. Or just think about the possibilities the underprivileged people will have with the brain-computer interface developing further.

Present day applications:

Although BCI seems to be a technology of future it has been in existence for quite long. BCI has applications in medical and many other fields, it is used to treat people with severe physical and mental disorder.

This is the picture of Stephen Hawkings a great scientist who uses BCI to communicate as he is paralyzed and unable to speak, it is also used for people who lost their body parts in an accident and have started using prosthetic limbs i.e BCI controlled limbs.

This technology is also used to control devices remotely, which includes playing computer games too.(picture)

All these things are fascinating but it is really astonishing when we think about the extent of researchers being carried out and the results obtained from them. We will be discussing some of those here,

Monkeys with chips

There was a monkey whose spinal cord was broken from middle, what scientists did was to install a chip at the brain and another chip in the bottom of the spinal cord allowing them to communicate, it was seen that the monkey was able to walk again but wait there is more

Rats with chips

There is one more incident where scientists took a rat and performed an experiment where the rat had to do a lot of things to get to food, it took the rat days to learn how to reach the food. Then the scientists took one more rat and the same setup but with chips on the head of both the rats allowing them to communicate with each other, this time the new rat knew instantaneously how to get the food which means the information was transferred. This is really astonishing, but if we could achieve this with rats just think what can we achieve if this technology can be successfully implemented in humans, let's look at some of the amazing things that we will be able to achieve:

Brain to brain communications

As it was with the rats we humans with chips in our head will also be able to communicate with each other no matter if we are in the same room or halfway around the world, this will surely render speech useless

Brian to the internet:

Well to be true, I really want this happen. Just imagine the amount of information that will be available to us. Yes, we will have access to all the information on the net, we will just need to think what we want to know and simply download all the information directly from net, amazing right but wait there is more

Transfer memory:

We will be actually not only able to transfer knowledge but also memories i.e you will be able to experience the memories and feelings of anyone in the world if he or she allows you to, you will literally live more than one life.

But there are a few downsides too i.e if you are connected to the net there is a possibility that you may be hijacked without even you having the knowledge of being hacked, it's scary but this will be a real threat I future.

Well, a lot is said and a lot more remains. We really don’t know where is our brain headed are we becoming a cyborg or will we operate and experience other worlds with our avatars on another planet from the comfort of our home WHAT OUR FUTURE HOLDS FOR us. Well, only time will tell. That’s all for this blog see you guys soon with more exciting content.