06/12/2019

Upgrade Your Memory With a Surgically Implanted Chip

Brain prostheses for the computer in your skull

In a grainy black-and-white video shot at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, a patient sits in a hospital bed, his head wrapped in a bandage. He’s trying to recall 12 words for a memory test but can only conjure three: whale, pit, zoo. After a pause, he gives up, sinking his head into his hands.

In a second video, he recites all 12 words without hesitation. “No kidding, you got all of them!” a researcher says. This time, the patient had help - a prosthetic memory aid inserted into his brain.

Over the past five years, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has invested $77 million to develop devices intended to restore the memory-generation capacity of people with traumatic brain injuries. Last year, two groups conducting tests on humans published compelling results.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Bloomberg Businessweek.