Imagine infusing thousands of wireless devices into your brain, and using them to both monitor its activity and directly influence its actions. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, and for the moment it still is – but possibly not for long.
Brain research is on a roll at the moment. And as it converges with advances in science and technology more broadly, it’s transforming what we are likely to be able to achieve in the near future.
Where are neurotechnologies now?
Brain research is intimately entwined with advances in the “neurotechnologies” that not only help us study the brain’s inner workings, but also transform the ways we can interact with and influence it.
For example, researchers at the University of California Berkeley recently published the first in-animal trials of what they called “neural dust” – implanted millimeter-sized sensors. They inserted the sensors in the nerves and muscles of rats, showing that these miniature wirelessly powered and connected sensors can monitor neural activity. The long-term aim, though, is to introduce thousands of neural dust particles into human brains.
The UC Berkeley sensors are still relatively large, on par with a coarse piece of sand, and just report on what’s happening around them. Yet advances in nanoscale fabrication are likely to enable their further miniaturization. And in the future, combining them with technologies like optogenetics – using light to stimulate genetically modified neurons – could enable wireless, localized brain interrogation and control.
Used in this way, future generations of neural dust could transform how chronic neurological disorders are managed. They could also enable hardwired brain-computer interfaces (the original motivation behind this research), or even be used to enhance cognitive ability and modify behavior.
Cutting-edge tech comes with ethical questions
This week’s NAS workshop – organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and supported by the National Science Foundation and my home institution of Arizona State University – isn’t the first gathering of experts to discuss the ethics of brain technologies. In fact there’s already an active international community of experts addressing “neuroethics.”
Many of these scientific initiatives do have a prominent ethics component. The U.S. BRAIN initiative for example includes a Neuroethics Workgroup, while the E.C. Human Brain Project is using an Ethics Map to guide research and development. These and others are grappling with the formidable challenges of developing future neurotechnologies responsibly.
It’s against this backdrop that the NAS workshop sets out to better understand the social and ethical opportunities and challenges emerging from global brain research and neurotechnologies. A goal is to identify ways of ensuring these technologies are developed in ways that are responsive to social needs, desires and concerns. And it comes at a time when brain research is beginning to open up radical new possibilities that were far beyond our grasp just a few years ago.
Preparing now for what’s to come
As research leads to an increasingly sophisticated and fine-grained understanding of how our brains function, related neurotechnologies are likely to become equally sophisticated. As they do, our abilities to precisely control function, thinking, behavior and personality, will extend far beyond what is currently possible.
To get a sense of the emerging ethical and social challenges such capabilities potentially raise, consider this speculative near-future scenario:
Imagine that in a few years’ time, the UC Berkeley neural dust has been successfully miniaturized and combined with optogenetics, allowing thousands of micrometer-sized devices to be seeded through someone’s brain that are capable of monitoring and influencing localized brain functions. Now imagine this network of neural transceivers is wirelessly connected to an external computer, and from there, to the internet.
Such a network – a crude foreshadowing of science fiction author Iain M. Banks’ “neural lace” (a concept that has already grabbed the attention of Elon Musk) – would revolutionize the detection and treatment of neurological conditions, potentially improving quality of life for millions of people. It would enable external devices to be controlled through thought, effectively integrating networked brains into the Internet of Things. It could help overcome restricted physical abilities for some people. And it would potentially provide unprecedented levels of cognitive enhancement, by allowing people to interface directly with cloud-based artificial intelligence and other online systems.
Of course, predicting and responding to possible future risks is fraught with difficulties, and depends as much on who considers what a risk (and to whom) as it does the capabilities of emerging technologies to do harm. Yet it’s hard to avoid the likely disruptive potential of near-future neurotechnologies. Thus the urgent need to address – as a society – what we want the future of brain technologies to look like.
Moving forward, the ethical and responsible development of emerging brain technologies will require new thinking, along with considerable investment, in what might go wrong, and how to avoid it. Here, we can learn from thinking about responsible and ethical innovation that has come to light around recombinant DNA, nanotechnology, geoengineering and other cutting-edge areas of science and technology.
To develop future brain technologies both successfully and responsibly, we need to do so in ways that avoid potential pitfalls while not stifling innovation. We need approaches that ensure ordinary people can easily find out how these technologies might affect their lives – and they must have a say in how they’re used.
All this won’t necessarily be easy – responsible innovation rarely is. But through initiatives like this week’s NAS workshop and others, we have the opportunity to develop brain technologies that are profoundly beneficial, without getting caught up in an ethical minefield.
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