Looking back three years, Brent Gaisford shares uplifting, heart-warming stories about the benefits of brain-computer interfaces, and what inspired him to change his career path.
Brain-computer-interfaces (BCI) are going to be the most important invention of this century
We’re in the very early days for the technology – but BCI devices are already making huge impacts on the lives of people with disabilities.
You may have heard Michael Roccati’s incredible story earlier this year. He was fully paralyzed from the waist down in a 2017 motorcycle accident – but now he can walk, stand, and swim, assisted by a device implanted on his spinal cord below the site of his injury.
Even more recently, a man with ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a nervous system disease that causes progressive loss of muscular control) was given a custom brain implant that allowed him to continue communicating through the late stages of the disease. Even when he entered the fully locked-in stage of the illness and was no longer able to open his eyes or move his tongue, he could think in patterns that were interpretable by the device. He could speak – to request his favorite music and spell out “I love my cool son.”
I’ve spent the last six years working in real estate – but I also spent that time writing a science fiction novel. And the more I researched the technology I was imagining, the more I realized it wasn’t so far away.
Key points include:
- Improving BCI
- Leaps forward for people with disabilities
- Creativity and productivity
Read the full article, Why I quit my safe job in real estate to work on Brain-Computer Interfaces, on LinkedIn.