Brain Hacking 101: Memory

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How would you like to someday have the modern, electronic equivalent of a ‘tape backup’ running somewhere inside your head? Researchers at the University of So. Cal. have been working for some time now on a chip that can communicate with the human brain in a two-way fashion, and from reports coming out of their LA campus, they sound to be successful in most of their R&D work! The secret to their success is a microchip that mimics the frequency and pulses that the human brain emits through its neurons. When this chip and any old brain talk to each other, the chip acts like it is a body part, feeding information to the brain. This breakthrough in technology could unlock a whole new field of medical science: what I (and probably others) have affectionately labeled “Brain Hacking”…

Although I’m a purist (Translation: “A bit skittish of being injected with microchips”), the guys down at USC have some really great ideas about the use for this technology. Those with Alzheimer’s or just bad memory could have theirs augmented and improved by having a chip spliced into the part of their brain that deals with memories and related neural pathways.

The challenge for the Ted Berger and his USC team of researchers comes from within, though. It’s difficult to nail down exactally what needs to be done inside the brain, since each individual person has unique thought pathways and brain chemistry. “We could be destroying good memories to make room for new ones…” a member of Berger’s team admitted during an interview with Popular Science (April 2007).

While the technology is fantastic (and definitely putting us one step closer to ‘Cybranization‘), Berger and his associates don’t expect to have a prototype done in under 10 years, but they stress that trials for a human prostetic device could be running in under 15. I guess that leaves plenty of time for those volunteers to sign up…

…That is, unless they forget.

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