Scientists have long dreamed of reading brainwaves to restore mobility and speech to people who are paralyzed.
That dream may be closer to becoming a reality.
In November, Neuralink started recruiting Canadian patients with spinal cord injuries or ALS for clinical trials. Neuralink makes a computer chip that can be implanted into the brain. The company says its goal is to help people with quadriplegia control computers by their thoughts.
Neuralink — which is owned by Elon Musk — may be the best known developer of such products. But other researchers are developing similar ones.
Last summer, researchers at the University of California Davis implanted sensors into the brain of a man whose speech was damaged by ALS, a neurodegenerative disease. The device interprets users’ brain signals when they try to speak and turns those signals into text that a computer reads out.
Technologies like these hold a lot of promise, says Jennifer Chandler, a University of Ottawa law professor who studies the ethics of biomedical technology. But they also raise ethical concerns that need to be considered before the technologies are fully developed.
Chandler knows these concerns well.
She co-ordinates a project, Hybrid Minds, that brings together researchers from several countries to study the ethics of brain-computer interfaces. Brain-computer interfaces measure someone’s brain activity and decode that activity to reveal what a user intends to do, such as moving robotic arms or speaking through computers.
Brain-computer interfaces that can be implanted directly into the brain — such as Neuralink’s computer chips — are still under development. But these devices are already raising privacy concerns. Specifically, researchers are concerned about their potential to interfere with people’s thoughts.
“We haven’t been able to directly threaten mental privacy [before these technologies],” Chandler recently told students at a University of Ottawa lecture. Legal experts are still debating what mental privacy is, whether people have a right to it and what that right could include, Chandler said in her presentation.
Some of these privacy concerns can be addressed while devices are being designed, Chandler says. Devices can be created to store data for a limited amount of time, for example, or only store certain types of data.
“You can try to anticipate and mitigate some of the possible risks.”
Age-old questions
Neuralink gets a lot of attention because it has a “sci-fi flavour” to it, Chandler told Canadian Affairs in an interview. But similar technology could be used — or is already being used — for other tasks.
Brain measurements are already used in some criminal investigations to determine what details about an event a person recognizes, says Chandler.
Researchers are also exploring whether brain data from convicted sex offenders could be used to determine their arousal patterns or risk of re-offending, she says.
These uses raise age-old questions about whether humans have free will to choose, or whether their choices are pre-determined, says Chandler.
“No one understands consciousness and the way psychology, environment, society and the brain all interact,” said Chandler. “I think it’s a most fascinating puzzle. And I wish I’m going to be around for hundreds of years to try to figure it out.”
Interest in brain-computer interfaces is also growing in the medical community.
“There is a strong embracing of [brain-computer interface] technology in the field [of ALS research and treatment],” said Dr. David Taylor, vice-president of research at the ALS Society of Canada, a research and advocacy organization.
Brain-computer interfaces would “allow individuals to have some independence simply by thinking about what they want to do,” Taylor said. For people losing their independence, the chance to regain it is priceless.
Neuralink’s device is still being developed, and has not been implanted into any Canadians, the University Health Network told Canadian Affairs in an email. The Toronto-based hospital network is overseeing Neuralink’s clinical trial.
It is unclear how soon Neuralink will be available to the public, if ever. But Taylor says Neuralink has benefited from the prior research done by other companies — and Musk’s wealth.
“The exploration has been very slow to make sure that this is very safe and careful,” Taylor said, referring to why an implanted device for ALS is not available yet.
Privacy concerns raised about brain-computer interfaces are important, says Chandler. But the “flip side” to these concerns is considering whether there is an ethical obligation to create technology that helps people communicate.
“People react [to brain-computer interfaces] with, ‘Oh, we got to protect people from mind reading,’” she said. But she likes to remind people that, for some people, that technology “gives them a voice back.”
Under international human rights law, countries must make sure people with disabilities have access to assistive technologies. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Canada signed in 2010, lists access to affordable assistive technology as a right.
‘Appetite for these things’
Brain-computer interfaces that are already available for commercial purposes are typically worn as helmets or headsets.
Some can help monitor a person’s emotional state. The company Muse makes headbands that sense when someone is distracted or focused. These products, the company’s website says, can help improve sleep or help people meditate.
Other brain-computer interfaces can be used for playing video games.
But these products also come with concerns, such as how data from these devices could be used to target consumers with advertising or make them addictive, says Chandler.
But the development of these commercial devices could lead to faster development of devices to help people with disabilities, she says.
“If everybody’s appetite for these things gets us faster to a non-invasive, high-quality [brain-computer interface] that can be used for other medical purposes by people with a smaller population that needs them, that would be a good spinoff,” she said.
