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by Karen Rommelfanger Miguel Nicolelis is dedicated to liberating the human brain from the physical constraints of a body . Recently, brain-machine interface engineer extraordinaire  Miguel Nicolelis  connected nonhuman animal brains in a modern-day mind meld called the brainet. For those who don't already know him, Nicolelis is an innovator, dedicated to pushing the limits of what is possible with neurotechnology, and a media darling to boot. One focus of Nicolelis' work has been developing neural prostheses whose function is mediated through wired or wirelessly transmitted electrical activity from arrays of electrodes implanted on the surfaces of nonhuman animal brains. One well-known experiment from the Nicolelis lab involved monkeys that  learned to feed themselves a marshmallow   or even operate a robot on a treadmill via direct connection electrodes implanted in their brains and a prosthetic arm. For extra flash, Nicolelis had a 12-lb monkey (based out of...

By Cassandra Evans Cassandra Evans is a Ph.D. student in Disability Studies at Stony Brook University. She studies mental disabilities and ethics surrounding treatment, services, and access for individuals with mental disabilities. She is currently examining the history of institutions in Suffolk County, Long Island (New York) and what shape the “way forward” from institutionalization will take in the new millennium. This post is a shorter version of a talk Cassandra gave at the Society for Disability Studies’ national conference in Atlanta, Georgia, June 11, 2015. In early June, 2015, I visited Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood, New York, (Suffolk County, Long Island). As I drove onto the Pilgrim campus, I felt as if I could be entering any of the other scores of institutions around the country—the pictures I’ve seen all look so similar and convey the same eeriness: high rise brick buildings with plain numbers on them, grass growing up all around, broken and barred windows, ...