Credit: Stuart Briers. Scientific AmericanScientists combined a brain-computer interface with an optogenetic switch to create the first-ever brain-gene interface
Feb. 12, 2015 (Scientific American) -- People can control prosthetic limbs, computer programs and even remote-controlled helicopters with their mind, all by using brain-computer interfaces. What if we could harness this technology to control things happening inside our own body?
A team of bioengineers in Switzerland has taken the first step toward this cyborglike setup by combining a brain-computer interface with a synthetic biological implant, allowing a genetic switch to be operated by brain activity. It is the world's first brain-gene interface.
The group started with a typical brain-computer interface, an electrode cap that can register subjects' brain activity and transmit signals to another electronic device. In this case, the device is an electromagnetic field generator; different types of brain activity cause the field to vary in strength.
The next step, however, is totally new -- the experimenters used the electromagnetic field to trigger protein production within human cells in an implant in mice.
READ MORE: Scientific American