Saturday, July 19, 2025
Smart Again
  • Home
  • Trending
  • Politics
  • Law & Defense
  • Community
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Smart Again
  • Home
  • Trending
  • Politics
  • Law & Defense
  • Community
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Smart Again
No Result
View All Result
Home Trending

The brain tech revolution is here — and it isn’t all Black Mirror

July 19, 2025
in Trending
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0 0
A A
0
The brain tech revolution is here — and it isn’t all Black Mirror
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


When you hear the word “neurotechnology,” you may picture Black Mirror headsets prying open the last private place we have — our own skulls — or the cyber-samurai of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. That dread is natural, but it can blind us to the real potential being realized in neurotech to address the long intractable medical challenges found in our brains. In just the past 18 months, brain tech has cleared three hurdles at once: smarter algorithms, shrunken hardware, and — most important — proof that people can feel the difference in their bodies and their moods.

A pacemaker for the brain

Keith Krehbiel has battled Parkinson’s disease for nearly a quarter-century. By 2020, as Nature recently reported, the tremors were winning — until neurosurgeons slipped Medtronic’s Percept device into his head. Unlike older deep-brain stimulators that carpet-bomb movement control regions in the brain with steady current, the Percept listens first. It hunts the beta-wave “bursts” in the brain that mark a Parkinson’s flare and then fires back millisecond by millisecond, an adaptive approach that mimics the way a cardiac pacemaker paces an arrhythmic heart.

In the ADAPT-PD study, patients like Krehbiel moved more smoothly, took fewer pills, and overwhelmingly preferred the adaptive mode to the regular one. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic agreed: The system now has US and EU clearance.

Because the electrodes spark only when symptoms do, total energy use is reduced, increasing battery life and delaying the next skull-opening surgery. Better yet, because every Percept shipped since 2020 already has the sensing chip, the adaptive mode can be activated with a simple firmware push, the way you’d update your iPhone.

Scientists applied the same listen-then-zap logic farther down the spinal cord this year. In a Nature Medicine pilot, researchers in Pittsburgh laid two slender electrode strips over the sensory roots of the lumbar spine in three adults with spinal muscular atrophy. Gentle pulses “reawakened” half-dormant motor neurons: Every participant walked farther, tired less, and — astonishingly — one person strode from home to the lab without resting.

Half a world away, surgeons at Nankai University threaded a 50-micron-thick “stent-electrode” through a patient’s jugular vein, fanned it against the motor cortex, and paired it with a sleeve that twitched his arm muscles. No craniotomy, no ICU — just a quick catheter procedure that let a stroke survivor lift objects and move a cursor. High-tech rehab is inching toward outpatient care.

Mental-health care on your couch

The brain isn’t only wires and muscles; mood lives there, too. In March, the Food and Drug Administration tagged a visor-like headset from Pulvinar Neuro as a Breakthrough Device for major-depressive disorder. The unit drips alternating and direct currents while an onboard algorithm reads brain rhythms on the fly, and clinicians can tweak the recipe over the cloud. The technology offers a ray of hope for patients whose depression has resisted conventional treatments like drugs.

Thought cursors and synthetic voices

Cochlear implants for people with hearing loss once sounded like sci-fi; today more than 1 million people hear through them. That proof-of-scale has emboldened a new wave of brain-computer interfaces, including from Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink. The company’s first user, 30-year-old quadriplegic Noland Arbaugh, told Wired last year he now “multitasks constantly” with a thought-controlled cursor, clawing back some of the independence lost to a 2016 spinal-cord injury. Neuralink isn’t as far along as Musk often claims — Arbaugh’s device experienced some problems, with some threads detaching from the brain — but the promise is there.

On the speech front, new systems are decoding neural signals into text on a computer screen, or even synthesized voice. In 2023 researchers from Stanford and the University of California San Francisco installed brain implants in two women who had lost the ability to speak, and managing to hit decoding times of 62 and 78 words per minute, far faster than previous brain tech interfaces. That’s still much slower than the 160 words per minute of natural English speech, but more recent advances are getting closer to that rate.

Guardrails for gray matter

Yes, neurotech has a shadow. Brain signals could reveal a person’s mood, maybe even a voting preference. Europe’s new AI Act now treats “neuro-biometric categorization” — technologies that can classify individuals by biometric information, including brain data — as high-risk, demanding transparency and opt-outs, while the US BRAIN Initiative 2.0 is paying for open-source toolkits so anyone can pop the hood on the algorithms.

And remember the other risk: doing nothing. Refusing a proven therapy because it feels futuristic is a little like turning down antibiotics in 1925 because a drug that came from mold seemed weird.

Twentieth-century medicine tamed the chemistry of the body; 21st-century medicine is learning to tune the electrical symphony inside the skull. When it works, neurotech acts less like a hammer than a tuning fork — nudging each section back on pitch, then stepping aside so the music can play.

Real patients are walking farther, talking faster, and, in some cases, simply feeling like themselves again. The challenge now is to keep our fears proportional to the risks — and our imaginations wide enough to see the gains already in hand.

A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!

You’ve read 1 article in the last month

Here at Vox, we’re unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.

Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.

We rely on readers like you — join us.

Swati Sharma

Vox Editor-in-Chief



Source link

Tags: BlackBrainElon MuskEmerging TechFuture PerfectGood NewsHealthInfluenceInnovationisntMental HealthMirrorrevolutionTechTechnology
Previous Post

Pressure grows to unmask ICE

Next Post

There’s a lot we still don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein

Related Posts

Pressure grows to unmask ICE
Trending

Pressure grows to unmask ICE

July 19, 2025
Joe DiMaggio 56-Game Hitting Streak Halted
Trending

Joe DiMaggio 56-Game Hitting Streak Halted

July 19, 2025
Trump’s attack on NPR and PBS, briefly explained
Trending

Trump’s attack on NPR and PBS, briefly explained

July 18, 2025
The new revelation about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, explained
Trending

The new revelation about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, explained

July 18, 2025
Pedo Or Not, Trump Has Made Life Easier For Child Predators
Trending

Pedo Or Not, Trump Has Made Life Easier For Child Predators

July 18, 2025
‘Desperate defensive move’: Trump’s call to unseal Epstein testimony seen as “red herring
Trending

‘Desperate defensive move’: Trump’s call to unseal Epstein testimony seen as “red herring

July 18, 2025
Next Post
There’s a lot we still don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein

There's a lot we still don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
How a House bill could let Trump label enemies as terrorists

How a House bill could let Trump label enemies as terrorists

November 20, 2024
Why is everyone crashing out?

Why is everyone crashing out?

June 29, 2025
“A huge net positive”: Controversial “Squid Game” character challenges Western representation ideals

“A huge net positive”: Controversial “Squid Game” character challenges Western representation ideals

December 31, 2024
This pro-Israel group keeps a  blacklist. Now it’s taking credit for deportations.

This pro-Israel group keeps a blacklist. Now it’s taking credit for deportations.

April 25, 2025
Wait, should I bother using antibacterial soap?

Wait, should I bother using antibacterial soap?

January 2, 2025
A new book suggests a path forward for Democrats. The left hates it.

A new book suggests a path forward for Democrats. The left hates it.

March 20, 2025
“They stole an election”: Former Florida senator found guilty in “ghost candidates” scandal

“They stole an election”: Former Florida senator found guilty in “ghost candidates” scandal

0
The Hawaii senator who faced down racism and ableism—and killed Nazis

The Hawaii senator who faced down racism and ableism—and killed Nazis

0
The murder rate fell at the fastest-ever pace last year—and it’s still falling

The murder rate fell at the fastest-ever pace last year—and it’s still falling

0
Trump used the site of the first assassination attempt to spew falsehoods

Trump used the site of the first assassination attempt to spew falsehoods

0
MAGA church plans to raffle a Trump AR-15 at Second Amendment rally

MAGA church plans to raffle a Trump AR-15 at Second Amendment rally

0
Tens of thousands are dying on the disability wait list

Tens of thousands are dying on the disability wait list

0
There’s a lot we still don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein

There’s a lot we still don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein

July 19, 2025
The brain tech revolution is here — and it isn’t all Black Mirror

The brain tech revolution is here — and it isn’t all Black Mirror

July 19, 2025
Pressure grows to unmask ICE

Pressure grows to unmask ICE

July 19, 2025
Why flash flood warnings are never enough

Why flash flood warnings are never enough

July 19, 2025
Joe DiMaggio 56-Game Hitting Streak Halted

Joe DiMaggio 56-Game Hitting Streak Halted

July 19, 2025
We were kidnapped

We were kidnapped

July 19, 2025
Smart Again

Stay informed with Smart Again, the go-to news source for liberal perspectives and in-depth analysis on politics, social justice, and more. Join us in making news smart again.

CATEGORIES

  • Community
  • Law & Defense
  • Politics
  • Trending
  • Uncategorized
No Result
View All Result

LATEST UPDATES

  • There’s a lot we still don’t know about Jeffrey Epstein
  • The brain tech revolution is here — and it isn’t all Black Mirror
  • Pressure grows to unmask ICE
  • About Us
  • Advertise with Us
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA
  • Cookie Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2024 Smart Again.
Smart Again is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Trending
  • Politics
  • Law & Defense
  • Community
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2024 Smart Again.
Smart Again is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Go to mobile version