this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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• Concerns rise as Neuralink fails to provide evidence of brain implant success, raising safety and transparency questions.

• Controversy surrounds Neuralink's lack of data on surgical capabilities and alarming treatment of monkeys with brain implants.

• While Neuralink touts achievements, experts question true innovation and highlight developments in other brain implant projects.

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[–] daltotron@lemmy.world 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No, typically they’re just sensors on a cranial harness.

Do you mean EEG stuff, or are you referring to like, inter-cranial implants, which I don't know shit about?

Yes, there’s no real advantage to making it permanent other than convenience. However this convenience is imo massively outweighed by the very real possibility of meningitis. It’s crazy that they got approval to transect the blood brain barrier for an implant. Other implants do this, but that risk is being weighed against things like potentially deadly seizures, not mild convenience.

Do you mean counteracting potentially deadly seizures, or causing them? Also, there's probably too many other problems to list about the technology generally, but since you seem like you know what you're talking about, could you give me like, a kind of general overview on BCI, or your opinion? Maybe like, challenges, what you see as being the most promising stuff, that sort of thing?

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago

Do you mean EEG stuff,

For the most part, yes. If we're just needing enough input to control something like a mouse, then there's no real reason to go with an invasive implant. You can pull the same data from eeg and ocular tracking.

Do you mean counteracting potentially deadly seizures, or causing them?

It would be counteracting seizures.

BCI, or your opinion? Maybe like, challenges, what you see as being the most promising stuff, that sort of thing?

The problem with BCI is that there's just not a lot of uses for them. The quadriplegic community is already small, and their range of cognitive ability runs the gamut. So creating a cbi that is useful to the entire patient population is going to be tough. The largest obstacle would be patient education, and training care takers.

This is part of the reason I discount Musks interest in BCI as medical device, there's just no money in it. I think his only real motivation is to sell it to gullible wealthy people.

Another inherent problem with BCI is that it's not seamless. It takes a lot more concentration to operate a mouse with your mind than it does with your body. People don't really understand how much of their movement is handled by their spinal chord instead of the brain.

People have a hard time utilizing interactive spaces when we separate them from physical input. Which is why a lot of people struggle with VR,. When your physical senses like proprioception don't reflect the interactions the same as our visual senses we can become physically ill.