Basically, the brain is a whole superset of connected neurons.
Normally, wherever neurons come together and communicate among each other the thing that facilitates communication among neurons is known as synapses.
All brain activity is being made possible by the fact neurons fire electrical signals that passes information around the brain.
What is Neuralink?
Neuralink is a company that aims to create a medical procedure that uses electrodes to monitor brain activity and create a human-computer interface where humans can control computers with their brain.
When electrodes are placed close to neurons the data being transferred between the neurons can be read and recorded by a machine.
The brain has two main systems within it working together to produce a functional cerebral system, they include
- Limbic system
- Cortex system
The limbic system is responsible for handling emotions and basic human survival instincts while the cortex system helps us to handle and solve complex problems and also serves as the hub for critical thinking.
Neuralink aims to create a third layer to these two systems which will help to increase our capabilities as humans by a large order.
Neuralink promises to help provide a tool for gaining access to certain parts of the brain that might not be easily accessible on a regular basis in a bid to help increase our mental strength and increase our capabilities.
Medical patients will find a tool like Neuralink to be very useful especially for those that have lost access to certain cognitive functions in their brain systems.
Why do we need something like Neuralink?
Imagine a scenario where you have to learn something you have absolutely no prior knowledge about in the shortest possible time.
Before the internet came getting the information you needed for that would have been a complete nightmare.
However, with the internet you can easily solve that issue with a simple Google search of the concept you are trying to learn.
Fast right? Of course, that is a faster alternative than going to the library and searching probably for days through the shelves for answers.
As fast as the Google search alternative might be though, it is probably not fast enough, imagine that you could just think up something in your head that you initially didn't know about and under three to four seconds you have the answers you need being downloaded to your brain.
That would be great right? That's what Neuralink is offering us as humans. The power to accomplish more in less time and with less physical effort.
Neuralink helps to connect your brain directly to your machine and provides an interface for data input and output to flow between both entities.
Neuralink as a Brain Machine Interface
A brain machine interface(BMI) is a device that is capable of processing information received from the brain and translating it to an equivalent command to be executed by a software on any BMI enabled machine.
BMI's are potentially the best way to help humans with cognitive and motor disabilities presently.
A BMI can be anything from an actual computer, to a BMI enabled prosthetic legs.
Neuralink Chips
Here comes the interesting part, in order for there to be interaction between the brain and the machine there has to be some go between that takes the data being sent, processes it and converts it to a form that's understood by the recipient body be it the brain or the machine.
Neuralink aims to make use of little chip implants in the brain of the human being connected to the machine.
A single chip will contain about a thousand electrodes that will be used for the purpose of reading data from the brain or machine, either way.
The chip is relatively small in size and is said to be around 4 * 4 mm in diameter and the head of a human can easily house up to 10 of this chips in different areas of the brain.
Final Notes
Currently, studies have shown that humans have been able to control things like robotic limbs and computer cursors with a maximum of 256 electrodes in a BMI chip, Neuralink plans to use 1000 of that and with the possibility that there might even be more than one instance of the chip in humans that might need more than one.
Neuralink is owned by Elon Musk and recently it was announced that the first demonstration of humans using Neuralink might take place very soon.
Till then, I will keep my fingers crossed waiting to see if we just found the eighth wonder of the world.