(January 20, 2016) New
effort aims for fully implantable devices able to connect with up to one
million neurons
A new DARPA program aims to develop an implantable neural
interface able to provide unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer
bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world. The interface would
serve as a translator, converting between the electrochemical language used by
neurons in the brain and the ones and zeros that constitute the language of
information technology. The goal is to achieve this communications link in a
biocompatible device no larger than one cubic centimeter in size, roughly the
volume of two nickels stacked back to back.
The program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), stands
to dramatically enhance research capabilities in neurotechnology and provide a
foundation for new therapies.
“Today’s best brain-computer interface systems are like two
supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem,” said
Phillip Alvelda, the NESD program manager. “Imagine what will become possible
when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain
and modern electronics.”
Among the program’s potential applications are devices that
could compensate for deficits in sight or hearing by feeding digital auditory
or visual information into the brain at a resolution and experiential quality
far higher than is possible with current technology.
Neural interfaces currently approved for human use squeeze a
tremendous amount of information through just 100 channels, with each channel
aggregating signals from tens of thousands of neurons at a time. The result is
noisy and imprecise. In contrast, the NESD program aims to develop systems that
can communicate clearly and individually with any of up to one million neurons
in a given region of the brain.
Achieving the program’s ambitious goals and ensuring that
the envisioned devices will have the potential to be practical outside of a
research setting will require integrated breakthroughs across numerous
disciplines including neuroscience, synthetic biology, low-power electronics,
photonics, medical device packaging and manufacturing, systems engineering, and
clinical testing. In addition to the program’s hardware challenges, NESD
researchers will be required to develop advanced mathematical and
neuro-computation techniques to first transcode high-definition sensory
information between electronic and cortical neuron representations and then
compress and represent those data with minimal loss of fidelity and
functionality.