What Types of Cyborg Implants Are Available Now?
While today's implants are pretty basic, several hold promise for
linking the brain to a computer
By Kevin Warwick, Special to Betterhumans
3/8/2004 • Hits: 945 • Comments: 0


Credit: Kevin Warwick
Chipping in: Electrode arrays that link the brain and nervous system
are in the early stages of development

I was wondering if you would be able to tell me a little more about
the types of implants that we have available at the moment. I also am
curious about what kinds of possibilities there are for neural
networks such as the ability to create a human who has remote access
to the Web without need of a computer.

James Kraska
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Firstly there are a lot of implants for restorative purposes, such as
heart pacemakers and cochlea implants. You could even count such
things as implants for artistic purposes and artificial hips. There
are also a number of tagging type of implants that can be read either
barcode reader style or from a remote receiver station.

However, the most exciting type of implants are those linking the
brain and nervous system electrically with a computer—and thence onto
the Internet.

In this latter group exists a wide range of implants:

Collar electrodes: These fit snuggly around nerve bundles and make a
good contact when firmly crimped around the nerves.

Single electrode connections: These can be inserted externally to
make a direct electrical connection.

Electrode groups: Single electrode connections grouped together,
these are often silicon tipped and can be used in such things as
retina arrays.

Microelectrode arrays: These can be etched arrays that lie flat
against a neural surface. They come in several variations. There are
also spiked electrodes that look something like a hairbrush and can
have several electrode connections on each spike. There are also
spiked electrodes with only tipped electrode points. All electrodes
can be the same length or they can be wedge shaped.

Many of these different types of implants have been used for short-
term culture and slice tests, usually with nonhuman tissue. For long-
term human use and experimentation not involving repair (as with
retina arrays), as far as I am aware there is only one reported
experiment, from October 2003 (Archives of Neurology, Vol. 60, No.
10, pp. 1369-1373).

As for computer-less remote access to the web, presumably to include
bidirectional memory exchanges, I feel that this has to be seen as a
long way off—10 years at the very least.

Kevin Warwick carries out research in artificial intelligence,
control and robotics, and believes that humans should merge with
machines. He is Professor of Cybernetics at the UK's University of
Reading.

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