Chip in the Brain? How Brain-Computer Interfaces Could Change Medicine

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The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2024

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A day when people can interact directly with computers using their thoughts could be on the horizon. Several companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, have begun preliminary human trials of brain-computer interfaces - devices that decode the electrical signals in their brain and translate them into digital bits. Neurosurgeon Benjamin Rapoport is a co-founder and chief science officer of Precision Neuroscience, a company working on brain-computer interfaces. He spoke with WSJ’s Danny Lewis about how the technology works and how these implants could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who could gain the ability to independently engage with the digital world. Correction: Dr. Benjamin Rapoport is the co-founder of Precision Neuroscience. An earlier version misspelled his name Rapaport. (Corrected on May 3) What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com Further reading: Inside the Operating Room: Doctors Test a Revolutionary Brain-Computer Implant Elon Musk’s Neuralink Wants to Make ‘The Matrix’ a Reality. It Has a Lot to Prove First. She Didn’t Speak for 18 Years. A Computer Helped Find Her Voice. The Devices That Will Read Your Brain—and Enhance It Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We've all felt left out and for people who move to this country that feeling lasts more than a moment.
0:07.0	We can change that.
0:09.0	Learn how it belonging begins with us.org.
0:12.0	Brought to you by the Ad Council.
0:15.0	So I'm going to say the word and I want you to repeat it, okay?
0:22.0	Wait like a second after I say it, and you'll say it, okay?
0:27.0	So, say father, good.
0:30.0	Say goose.
0:34.0	Good. Back in February, Jeffrey Kiefer underwent brain surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia to relieve some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
0:42.0	A team from the Wall Street Journal was there too,
0:45.5	because Kiefer was taking part in an experiment that could change medicine and maybe
0:50.2	our relationship with computers. For just under your brain,
0:55.0	and make sure that the electricity is in the right area,
0:58.0	okay?
0:59.0	For just under half an hour,
1:00.0	an experimental device sat on the surface of Kiefer's brain collecting data on the
1:05.2	movements of his hands as he followed directions on a screen, making a fist, holding
1:10.3	up specific fingers.
1:12.4	And then...
1:13.0	The next one, you actually don't want you to move your hand.
1:17.0	You just want you to think about moving your hand.
1:20.0	Okay?
	...

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