Another successful brain electrode implant in the US
256 Electrode Signal Analysis-AI Voice Learning, 98% Accuracy… “Families Shed Tears”
Musk and others actively investing to accelerate commercialization… “It will grow to $4 billion by 2030”
The era in which we can control computers and converse with our thoughts is fast approaching. The ‘brain implant’ technology, which implants electrodes in the brain to read thoughts, is getting closer to commercialization. Recently, Silicon Valley giants such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, and Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos have been actively investing in brain implant companies, so the speed of commercialization is expected to accelerate.
● Voice restored after 5 years
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, announced on the 14th (local time) in the international academic journal ‘New England Journal of Medicine’ that they had successfully implanted electrodes into the brains of patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease and enabled them to converse normally.
Lou Gehrig’s disease is a brain disease in which the brain cells in the area responsible for movement gradually die, gradually making movement impossible. Casey Harrell (45), who recently received electrode implants, developed symptoms of Lou Gehrig’s disease five years ago and is currently unable to move his arms and legs or speak.
The researchers drilled holes into the patient’s skull and implanted 256 electrodes into the cortex, an area of the brain responsible for language. They used technology from BlackRock Neurotech, a brain implant development company in the U.S. that PayPal founder Thiel invested in.
The researchers analyzed the brain signals coming from the electrodes and converted them into words and sentences. Then, they used artificial intelligence (AI) that learned the patient’s voice to change the sentences into the patient’s voice. “It’s very similar to my voice,” said Harrell, shedding tears. The family members who were nearby also cried.
Blackrock’s brain implant maintained 97.5 percent accuracy for eight months after being implanted in Harrell. “This is remarkably accurate, considering that healthy people make only 1 to 2 percent of word errors when reading a paragraph out loud,” the researchers said.
● Expected to grow to a market worth 5 trillion won by 2030
Experts predict that brain implant technology will grow rapidly in the future due to advancements in medical technology and AI. Professor Kim Jae-kwan of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) said, “Attempts to read brain signals have been made since about 10 years ago, but recently, the speed of analyzing brain signals has greatly improved, and the technology has become much faster.”
Competition between companies is also intensifying. Not only BlackRock Neurotech, but also Neuralink, founded by CEO Musk, is conducting clinical trials for commercializing brain implants. Neuralink performed brain implants on its first patient in January of this year, and on its second patient early this month, and the patient succeeded in controlling a computer with just his thoughts. Neuralink also uses a total of 1,024 electrodes by drilling holes in the skull and inserting electrodes. Neuralink plans to implant electrodes in eight additional patients within the year.
Synchron, which has been invested in by Bezos, chairman of Amazon, and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, is also preparing for a large-scale clinical trial. Unlike the other two companies, Synchron uses stents that are used for stroke patients or myocardial infarction patients without drilling into the skull. The principle is to install a stent in a cerebral blood vessel and read brain signals using electrodes inside the stent. It may be less accurate than receiving signals directly from the brain, but it has the advantage of minimizing surgical intervention.
According to the global market research firm Fortune Business Insights, the global brain implant market size is expected to grow from $1.71 billion (about 2.32 trillion won) in 2022 to $4 billion (about 5.43 trillion won) in 2030, with an average annual growth rate of 11.2%.
Reporter Choi Ji-won [email protected]
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2024-08-18 05:54:43