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Key Points
Implanted computer chips have been the subject of science fiction for many years.
New developments in imaging, hardware, and our understanding of the physiology and pathophysiology of the brain and the organs it innervates have resulted in significant developments in the use of implanted computers.
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“The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games in early graphics programs and military experimentation with cranial jacks.” Neuromancer
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Neuromancer was published in 1984 (Fig. 18-1). Its author, William Gibson, is regarded as a cyberpunk visionary who described a networked world in which people “jack in” to Gibson’s Internet, which he called the Matrix, using a direct connection to the brain. The “cranial jack,” “dermatrodes,” “nerve-splicing,” and “micro bionics” are interface technologies described in the book permitting direct linkage between the brain and the electronic medium. This is rightly regarded as a seminal novel, but it is in an earlier novel by another visionary that we see one of the first references to bioelectronic interfaces.
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Michael Crichton’s The Terminal Man was published in 1972, and is about a man with recurrent seizures who enrolls in a scientific experiment in which terminals are implanted in his brain. The protagonist, Harry, is a computer programmer subject to murderous impulses which are brought on by “thought seizures.” In order to rid himself of this troublesome problem, he has 40 electrodes implanted in the pleasure centers of his brain which, when activated, abort the seizures—at least for a while, until things get really interesting (Fig. 18-2).
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Interface, published in 1997 by Stephen Bury (the pen name for Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George), marries the concepts of Gibson and Crichton with the strategies of the Clintons’ White House. In it, a presidential candidate is implanted with a neural biochip through which he is directly interfaced to poll results. Needless to say, this gives him a leg up on the competition (Fig. 18-3).
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While the ideas proposed by these authors were pure science fiction when they were written, reality is about to catch up. Neurosurgeons treat epilepsy by ablating seizure foci deep in the brain. Neural prostheses are being developed at a number of centers, and cochlear, retinal, and deep brain implants are under development. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are both funding work ...