Scientists Harness Mysteries Of Brain

A young woman, confined to a wheelchair, is told to think about moving another wheelchair in front of her, first to the left and then forward. As if by magic, the wheelchair follows her mental commands. "She was controlling the chair with her imagination", said Timothy Surgenor, president and chief executive of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems. Surgenor was using the video of the woman, who was paralysed by a brain stem stroke, to demonstrate a technology called BrainGate to some 900 researchers, physicians and investors attending a meeting at the Cleveland Clinic earlier this month. The woman had a tiny sensor that analyses brain signals implanted on the part of her brain that controls hand movement.

(Ref : Economic Times dated November 30, 2006)