What is a brain computer interface? How far along is this field? Can we eavesdrop on the brain

so that a person who has lost the ability to move can use their brain to control a computer cursor or a robotic arm.

Can someone who has lost the ability to speak, send brain signals to a decoder, and hear

their voice again?

Can we restore autonomy and dignity and eventually do so so seamlessly that the technology disappears

and the person reappears. In the future, where will the ethical boundaries be between

restoring function and spying on private thought? And who owns the stream of neural data that represents you?

Welcome to Innercosmos with me, David Eagleman.

I'm a neuroscientist and author at Stanford, and in these episodes, we sail deeply into our

three-pound universe to understand why and how our lives look the way they do.

This is an I-Heart podcast. This week we're talking about technology for reading the brain.

Now, one thing that I find fascinating is that ancient cultures didn't care at all about the brain.

They generally would just throw it out at autopsy.

And it's understandable why.

It just looks and feels like a huge, squishy walnut.

If you could sit and stare at a brain in action, you wouldn't see anything happening.

So it's taken centuries and a lot of technology to realize that, in fact, the brain is alive with

lots of tiny cells, microscopically tiny. And these cells are transmitting electrical signals

tens or hundred times every second for each cell,

and you have 86 billion of these cells.

So this big, squishy walnut is one of the busiest things on the planet.

But because it is so fragile, Mother Nature surrounds the brain

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