Miniaturized Wireless Neural Interfaces: A tutorial

Abstract

From the U.S. president fist-bumping a brain-controlled robotic arm to monkeys playing brain-controlled Pong, the past few years have had a surge of neural interfaces in the news. Neural interfaces, which are used in brain–machine interface (BMI) and neurostimulation technologies, often conjure images of mind-controlled cyborgs and mind uploading. In reality, they offer incredible hope for patients with intractable neurological conditions. For example, just nine years ago came the first demonstration of a woman with tetraplegia (paralysis from the chest down) controlling a robotic prosthetic arm through electrical signals recorded directly from her brain, specifically, the motor cortex, which controls movement <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> . For 15 years, she had been unable to perform basic daily tasks, such as eating and drinking on her own, but with a BMI, she demonstrated the ability to pick up a cup of coffee and take a sip.