Nearly 20 years after neuroscientist John Donoghue placed electrodes on Matthew Nagle’s motor cortex, allowing the man with no limb movement to control objects using his thoughts, the brain-computer interface field looks dramatically different — both the people doing the research and the technologies they are creating.
Researchers like Leigh Hochberg and Eddie Chang and big-name startups such as Synchron and Paradromics have turned what was not too long ago an arcane academic interest into a cultural phenomenon. Elon Musk, in particular, has stoked public interest in the technology with avowals that Neuralink’s technology will eventually allow humans to download their brains into robots.
The concurrent rise in artificial intelligence, including large language models and generative AI like ChatGPT, has been integral to these technological advances over the last two decades. Experts suggest the field is several years away from putting a viable product on the market, whether it restores movement or sensation or facilitates communication with a computer. But early studies have dramatically advanced medicine’s understanding of the brain and generated significant interest from potential stakeholders.
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