Some of the most difficult injuries to recover from involve the nervous system. Unlike broken bones or torn muscles, modern medicine has been flummoxed (for the most part) when dealing with severe neurological disorders and especially spinal cord injuries. Getting the nerves to refire after they’ve been damaged is still a problem for even the best neurosurgeons and doctors.
As computer technology gets smaller (and begins to incorporate organic material), perhaps doctors will soon have a new weapon in the fight against neurological issues.
Brain-computer interfaces offer the promise of giving sight to the blind, adding “memory” to your brain’s “hard drive” and even allowing you to interact with a computer program by just thinking!
And these exciting developments not as far off as you think. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) actually already approved of the first wave of neuroprosthetics — retinal implants — in 2013. But the next wave (and future subsequent waves) could help treat (and potentially cure) currently untreatable neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord paralysis with brain implants that can send electrical pulses to activate the parts of the brain that control motor function.