Neuroscience: John Donoghue | Machine-Brain Connections | DISCOVER Magazine

Neuroscience: John Donoghue | Machine-Brain Connections | DISCOVER Magazine

November, 2004:

John Donoghue is building a brain decoder that could transform the lives of people paralyzed by injury or disease. Those who have lost the ability to move their limbs often have perfectly intact brains, so Donoghue hopes to implant a chip that can monitor their brain activity and convert their intentions into computer commands. In its current version, the chip’s 100 hair-thin electrodes listen to neurons firing in an area that controls arm movement and translate the activity into electronic signals. A program then decodes the brain signals into commands that direct a cursor on a computer screen. Donoghue hopes the chip can eventually control appliances or even robotic limbs. “We’re effectively rewiring the nervous system—not biologically but with real wires,” says Donoghue. So far, more than 20 monkeys have been equipped with the implanted chip, and four of them have successfully willed a cursor to follow a moving target. Now Cyberkinetics, the company Donoghue cofounded to develop the device they call BrainGate, is preparing to test it in five paralyzed humans. “People with these kinds of injuries are perfectly capable of leading full and productive lives,” says Donoghue. “They just can’t get their signals out.”