Grindhouse Wetwares Update: HELEDD and Nervous System - Nervous System Communication
Good Morning Cyborgs and Cyborgs to Be,
The Grindhouse team has tackled the majority of HELEDD development and we are entering the stress testing phase. We'd like to thank the community for their continual support and interest in this project. We hope that its release will encourage and inspire a new wave of implants (sure, magnets are cool, but its time to move on! ) .
Announcement: I've been in contact with Blackrock Microsystems - the same company that provided the multielectrode arrays to Kevin Warwick's lab. Purchasing an array will cost around $4,000. I'd like to get a list of people interested in getting an array implanted so that we can replicate Warwick's nervous system - nervous system communication experiment with multiple participants. If enough people sign up, we can talk about how to acquire funds for buying an array or making one. It look forward to the day when we can all communicate in a more direct fashion, and I hope you are as well. Let me know what you think.
Lucas
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still. good to know that such a thing would be accessible ,given enough money. should come in handy one day.
given we "could" buy such an array. the next limiting factor would be the hardware that reads out the electrical signals. we are restricted to 8 lines per frontend-ic. so the implant would grow in size quite fast. my guess would be more than 32 pins per array would be unreasonable.
If I can come up with the money I'm all in for the multielectrode array. I love Professor Kevin Warwick's work.
He also had his wife, Irena, have a couple of electrodes inserted into her arm, and they did an experiment where, every time Irena moved her hand, Kevin could feel it as a pulse. This is why it would be useful in nervous - nervous communication.
For more information, you can find videos about it by typing "Kevin Warwick Project Cyborg 2.0" into YouTube. For example, there's this video; a bit over-sensationalist, and it gets a few things factually wrong, but it's a decent enough introduction. It's also fun to read some of the comments by people who think that Warwick's working for the Illuminati, or that this stuff is the mark of the beast.
~Ian
I hate when religious nuts say we are members of the Illuminati and devil worshippers because of how popular a lot of those nuts are, such as Alex Jones. I hate Alex Jones and Bill O'Reilly, both are very ignorant and more often than no have their facts very wrong.
http://io9.com/5667125/new-ultra+flexible-waterproof-leds-can-be-implanted-under-your-skin
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v9/n11/full/nmat2879.html
Good to know it's available.
So, we have a source for the array, and people (possibly) willing to put it in, the major piece missing is the hardware system to interface with the array. What is needed to build this system?
From Warwick's paper (linked below), they used a subdermal wire which lead away from the array before a transdermal connection to an external gauntlet which held the processing system.
Although 'cool' and useful for short term, I think we all know the problems with a transdermal, for a long term implant, the whole system would need to be subdermal.
Paper before Kevin Warwick got the implant, outlining what they planned:
http://goo.gl/eZFz5
Paper after having the implant, with results:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cf7nsm66eopp0a9/warwick.pdf
I guess we should wait until the HELEDD is tested in the real world, because if it works, it might be a useful base for such a system, since it has inductive charging, data connection, and limited processing, it could be implanted close to the skin above the array, and used to relay signals.
btw, I recommend reading those papers for those that haven't already.
I don't think transdermals should be shied away from as much as they are. I know there's a relatively high chance of rejection, amongst other possible complications, but it's where things will almost assuredly go at some point in time. Being able to plug in a new program or just keep the size of the subdermal part small for larger projects would be really useful.
Copying Warwick's experiments, I don't think everything could easily fit in a small, flexible subdermal implant. For all intents and purposes, you practically need a wearable interface to reprogram on, so the smallest subdermal only implant would be the wireless interface with minimal processing, the MEA, an inductor, and a battery with a gauntlet to provide an inductive charge and talk to the antenna/process the data. A transdermal connection would be significantly smaller.
A quick and easy test for viable transdermals would be to make a connector out of a transdermal and hook it up to a small LED. Plug in a low voltage/current to make sure it works and the connection is reliable. Other than the long term reliability of the connection, you just need to keep track of if it's rejecting. If I had the ability to I'd test it myself, but I personally think a smaller implant with transdermals would heal better over a completely subdermal one, especially involving MEAs.
As it is, even if a transdermal is only temporary within a few years, MEAs currently don't last forever either, and need to be either replaced or moved because the nerve cells start producing glial cells to cover up the electrodes, and overtime can either hurt the nerves, or just won't repsond well enough after some time from being damaged or the glial sheath. There's a reason Warwick took his MEA out after 96 days.
"Being able to plug in a new program or just keep the size of the subdermal part small for larger projects would be really useful."
@AmmonRa I appreciate having more discussion over this (though maybe we need a new thread so we don't totally hijack this one). I feel a lot of people read from Lepht that transdermals don't work well and left it at that. Her body might not accept transdermals readily, but it doesn't mean it should be ignored completely without looking into it first.
"Even the medical industry avoids transdermals as much as possible, and they have the equipment and skills to do the best job possible, we in the biohacking community stand little chance of achieving the same level of result as they do."
A lot of people get transdermal implants from body mod places. We don't need to have a wire sticking out of a body, just something small we can put a plug in similar to the screw on spikes people get. The only way to really see what works is to get varying sized transdermals to see what stays in best/longest.
"even the HELEDD allegedly supports wireless reprogramming to some extent."
When you do totally subdermal implants, for talking to it you have to add a wireless interface, which requires an inductor and battery if it's not already there. Reprogramming would (most likely) need a flash drive, which are small, but the hardware needed will add space. If a small transdermal plug is available, you can take out the need for at least the wireless interface and do a serial connection to a wearable device. Whether or not this is desirable will depend on the project and its requirements.
My main size issue with having a completely subdermal implant is that you can't put everything on a PCB much bigger than a quarter wide and a few inches long at best. Our bodies will change over time, and having too rigid a structure like a PCB would lead to complications if you took a lot of force to the fixture.
"you make it sound like this is why Warwick had it taken out after 96 days, he didn't mention that in the paper"
You're right, I jumped the gun and made a conclusion I shouldn't've. Though if he honestly didn't expect there to be any problems, I can't imagine why he'd take it out and take the risk of surgery again. I have metal plates on my jaw from surgery, but I won't get them removed because the risk of leaving them is less than the risk (and cost) of surgery to take them out.
"Even if there are problems they may be different and happen on a different time frame from cranial implants."
I can't seem to find the article, but it seems they have made a prototype MEA out of carbon nanotubes which they expect to have a smaller response from cells because they're magnitudes smaller than current metal electrodes. Once those hit the market we'll have to worry about the longterm viability of the whole implant, but hopefully transdermals are also easier and longer lasting by that point as well.
Overall, I agree the the current version of HELEDD/copying Warwick's experiment is definitely not the way to start off trying transdermals, but it's not something we should just throwaway. That's why I suggested something significantly smaller like a simple LED on a connector plug. It's small enough where it could be tested to see the longterm viability. I think the hardest part would be creating/finding a plug we could use. But once you're buying $4k MEAs and paying private surgeons, a cost like that seems minimal. I would like to know Shaedlaer's opinion on the matter though.
imagine why he'd take it out and take the risk of surgery again"
Yeah, we aren't really given much info about why he took it out, so it's really just speculation at this point.
"I can't seem to find the article"
http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/releases/20970-a-better-brain-implant-slim-electrode-cozies-up-to-single-neurons
Was it this one? it sounds great, but it's only been tried in rats so far, and I think it would be very hard to source even if we did want to try it in humans.
"but it's not something we should just throwaway. That's why I suggested
something significantly smaller like a simple LED on a connector plug"
Yeah, if you or someone else wants to experiment with transdermals, I'm willing to help you get the components needed.
That's an article about the same exact thing (probably a better one, too). It's still a ways away, but if/when they become the main electrode used in humans they shouldn't be much harder to source than current MEA technology. More expensive maybe, but quite possibly a drop in the pond when you talk about implanting MEAs, especially in the brain.
I'd be willing to try something with transdermals, but I'm not really in a position to at the moment. Currently all I can do is be an idea person and program :\