Brain implants have already been used to treat Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. Photo: 123rf
Implants merging our brains and nervous systems with technology can already prevent someone from having an epileptic fit, but as technology advances, so do the possibilities.
Dr Allan McCay is the director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology and an academic fellow at the University of Sydney's law school. His areas include neuroscience, neurotechnology, criminal law and ethics and last week he spoke at the University of Auckland's Natural Artificial Intelligence and Organisation Intelligence Institute.
Dr McCay told Afternoons there were a range of brain computer interfaces which had therapeutic applications.
For example, a clinical trial was underway for a brain implant which would help people with a condition called locked in syndrome, where they are unable to feed themselves or communicate because they cannot use their muscle systems, he said.
"The trial is underway to enable these people to have a brain implant that detects neural activity in the brain and then turns it into a command for say a cursor so they can communicate or even control a robotic arm so that a person could feed themselves."
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already approved an implant that monitors the brain of a person with epilepsy whose epileptic fits might not be responding properly to medication, he said.
"Most of the time it does nothing, but when it detects the neural precursors to an epileptic fit, it acts to stimulate the brain to stop the fit. And it, you know, works for some people that the medication isn't working for."
It was hoped that conditions like dementia or even schizophrenia might one day be able to be treated by some form of neuro technological intervention, he said.
"I've seen videos of people with a brain implant for Parkinson's and the difference between when the device is on in terms of their movement. And, you know, stopping the shaking and when it's off is just amazing. That's an existing application of neuro tech."
Taking the idea further, in the future there may be the possibility of enhancing somebody's intelligence using these types of technologies to increase their memory or their capacity to pay attention beyond the normal range, he said.
In some cases neurotech uses external headsets that do not require brain implants and read the brain activity from outside the brain in areas such as wellness or even gaming, he said.
Ethical issues
More concerning were external headsets that could be used to monitor the brain of somebody who was being interrogated by say the police or security forces, he said.
"The device detects neural activity connected with having seen something before."
The brain waves are supposedly different if you compare somebody seeing something for the first time, with those of them having seen something repeatedly, he said.
Police in Dubai were already using such technology, he said.
This has led to some concerns about use of these technologies and human rights, he said.
"The Australian Human Rights Commission is about to publish a background paper on neuro technology and human rights, and the United Nations has asked for a report on it."
There were other technologies which could decode the words that someone was thinking about which led to concerns about breaches of mental privacy which had not been able to happen until now, he said.
The more that was known about what a person was thinking the easier it became to manipulate them, he said.
For example some sort of neural device on the web which some how relayed a person's information to the internet algorithm might make enable advertisers to manipulate the person, he said.
Potentially neuro technology could increase the powers of the state or commercial bodies, he said.
"You know companies and states, countries, you know they go too far if ... it's okay if they monitor how we behave but if they monitor our inner most thoughts that's going too far you might think."
People are also able to control drones using neuro tech and their thought patterns, he said.
That posed an interesting legal issue if someone committed a crime by way of a computer interface, for example if you got a drone to fly into someone with the intention of injuring or killing them using a neuro interface to control the drone, he said.
"This kind of distinction between the guilty mind and the criminal act doesn't seem quite so clear as it did before."
