3 ms·

The most interesting thing here is not the mind reading, it is the miniaturization of computing and sparse data transfer. Neuralink off-loaded the computation t

The most interesting thing here is not the mind reading, it is the miniaturization of computing and sparse data transfer. Neuralink off-loaded the computation to the sensor, sending back aggregate data snapshots. Usually you will need massive ASIC/FPGA computation banks with a lot of messy to handle the data transfer and readout but they took a shortcut bye sending only counts of spikes that exceeds a certain threshold. There is nothing stopping you from using a cloth hangar. You just need to make sure it is impedance matched and properly sanitized for subdermal use. The signal will be much worse as a cloth hangar had gauge/diameter that is several magnitudes bigger than that of a neuron. Nothing here is particularly "novel" that it cannot be trivially replicated if you have the budget of one of the FAANGs. If you have 100million in capital, you can easily find poor neuroscience and EE PhDs who will be willing to work for you for <80K a year just for the opportunity to build something like this. The reason it is difficult and out of reach for smaller companies is because small amplifiers and electronic packages that can be subdermally implanted requires significant manufacturing capital as they fall under semiconductors and biomedical devices. Once the industry settle on a design expect the price to drop dramatically as the core chips and parts become commoditized.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Is there anyway to get this signal non invasively (magnetic field detection or photonically)? Or are implanted electrodes table stakes for a neural interface?
- lwansbrough 5y ago
  Not really, that we know of. To appreciate the complexity you could read this post[0] from Wait But Why? Your brain has approximately 40,000 neurons in the space of a cubic millimeter. Each saying something completely different. It’s incomprehensible noise unless you start dividing it up like Neuralink has. They get a few thousand probes in the size of a penny, which is a far greater level of resolution than you could probably ever expect from a wireless solution. [0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
  - aparsons 5y ago
    Do you think something like fMRI would have enough resolution? Can’t pick up activity directly of course, but perhaps by picking up fluid flow differentials?
    - PetitPrince 5y ago
      As mentioned by a sibling comment, fMRI have a sufficient spatial resolution (i.e. you can watch the activity of a few number of neuron at a time instead of grouping them by batch of hhundreds of them), but the temporal resolution is low (order of magnitude is seconds; a single action potential is 5ms). Here's a graph that summarize the temporal/spatial tradeoff of the different BMI tech: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-various-neural-recording-and-imaging-techniques-comparing-their-temporal-and-spatial_fig2_322549090 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-various-neural-recor...
- swordsmith 5y ago
  Noninvasive signal modality directly from the cortex are certainly possible (e.g. Ultrasound, fNIR). But they lack the spatial and temporal resolution of implanted electrodes. Intracortical brain signals are the most well understood and mature in terms of instrumentation as well. So in the short term, implanted electrodes offer the highest capacity for a BCI.
ampdepolymerase 5y ago
*messy cables *a shortcut by

toomuchtodo 5y ago

Is there anyway to get this signal non invasively (magnetic field detection or photonically)? Or are implanted electrodes table stakes for a neural interface?

lwansbrough 5y ago
Not really, that we know of. To appreciate the complexity you could read this post[0] from Wait But Why? Your brain has approximately 40,000 neurons in the space of a cubic millimeter. Each saying something completely different. It’s incomprehensible noise unless you start dividing it up like Neuralink has. They get a few thousand probes in the size of a penny, which is a far greater level of resolution than you could probably ever expect from a wireless solution. [0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
- aparsons 5y ago
  Do you think something like fMRI would have enough resolution? Can’t pick up activity directly of course, but perhaps by picking up fluid flow differentials?
  - PetitPrince 5y ago
    As mentioned by a sibling comment, fMRI have a sufficient spatial resolution (i.e. you can watch the activity of a few number of neuron at a time instead of grouping them by batch of hhundreds of them), but the temporal resolution is low (order of magnitude is seconds; a single action potential is 5ms). Here's a graph that summarize the temporal/spatial tradeoff of the different BMI tech: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-various-neural-recording-and-imaging-techniques-comparing-their-temporal-and-spatial_fig2_322549090 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-various-neural-recor...
swordsmith 5y ago
Noninvasive signal modality directly from the cortex are certainly possible (e.g. Ultrasound, fNIR). But they lack the spatial and temporal resolution of implanted electrodes. Intracortical brain signals are the most well understood and mature in terms of instrumentation as well. So in the short term, implanted electrodes offer the highest capacity for a BCI.

ampdepolymerase 5y ago

*messy cables *a shortcut by