Liberating brains from bodies by capturing them with brainets?
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...