The device will let the brain communicate

The military agency is hoping to develop technology that will allow soldiers to use their minds to control things like drones in war zones

The US military has successfully implanted and tested its first 'brain modem' on an animal subject.

The tiny, implanted chip, developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), uses a tiny sensor that travels through blood vessels, lodges in the brain and records neural activity.

Neurologists injected tiny sensors into livestocks’ veins and then recorded the electrical impulses that control the animals’ movements for six months.

The stentrode (pictured) could allow servicemen to use the 'brain modem' to maneuver drones. It was successfully tested on animals this month

The sensor, called a 'stentrode', a combination of the words 'stent' and 'electrode', is the first step in the military's desire to allow soldiers to control machinery with their minds.

Hypothetically, this could allow servicemen to use the 'brain modem' to maneuver drones.

The stentrode is the size of a paperclip, flexible and injectable. Instead of invasive brain surgery, it enters the bloodstream via a catheter and then transmits data.

'DARPA has previously demonstrated direct brain control of a prosthetic limb by paralyzed patients fitted with penetrating electrode arrays implanted in the motor cortex during traditional open-brain surgery,' said Doug Weber, the program manager for RE-NET.

'By reducing the need for invasive surgery, the stentrode may pave the way for more practical implementations of those kinds of life-changing applications of brain-machine interfaces.'

The US military has launched a program to develop implantable chips that will allow the human brain to communicate directly, and accurately, with computers. The devices would convert the neurochemical information produced by brain cells into the digital binary language used by computers

Last month, Darpa released its first look at the new technology.

DISPOSABLE BRAIN IMPLANTS A team of neurosurgeons and engineers has developed wireless brain sensors that can dissolve harmlessly when no longer needed. The implants could be used to monitor patients who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. As the devices are absorbed by the soft tissue when they reach the end of the life, it removes the need to perform surgery to remove them. The researchers at Washington University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said it could also be used to monitor activity in organs through out the body. Dr Rory Murphy, MD, a neurosurgeon at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St Louis who was involved in developing the sensors, said: 'The benefit of these new devices is that they dissolve over time, so you don't have something in the body for a long time period, increasing the risk of infection, chronic inflammation and even erosion through the skin or the organ in which it's placed. 'Plus, using resorbable devices negates the need for surgery to retrieve them, which further lessens the risk of infection and further complications.' Advertisement

Phillip Alvelda, the Neural Engineering System Design program manager, said the technology is aimed at overcoming the problems faced by current attempts at brain-computer communication.

While these devices can detect the electrical activity of the brain, they require the user to concentrate and undergo training to produce specific, easy to detect signals.

Mr Alvelda said: 'Today's best brain-computer interface systems are like two super computers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem.

'Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics.'

The project could also open up new therapies for neural disorders and even develop devices that could help the blind and deaf.

Darpa added its digital auditory or visual information could be fed directly into the brain at high resolutions.

While this could help patients, it could also provide new ways for soldiers to receive information and communicate while on the battlefield.

Most research on brain implants has focused on allowing people with disabilities to control computers or robotic limbs with their brain.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University last week announced a patient had used an implant that taps into the nerve signals from the brain to move a robotic arm.

Others have used electrodes inserted directly into the brain.

Perhaps the most common brain-computer interface technology, however, are modified electroencephalograms, which pick up the electrical activity from the brain on the scalp.

With training, these can be used to move robots or even paint on a computer screen. These also require ungainly headsets that use sensors and gels to pick up the activity.

The Darpa program, conversely, wants to use an implant that taps directly into the brain following surgery.

Most brain-computer interfaces currently available use electrodes that pick up on the weak electrical activity of the brain through the skin of the scalp. While this can be used to control computers, robots or even cars with training, they tend to be inaccurate (Emotiv brain controller for computer games pictured)

There have been a number of successes where patients, such as stroke victim Cathy Hutchinson (pictured), have been able to control robotic arms through electrodes implanted into their brain. But these are bulky and have also cram large amounts of information through a small number of channels, making them hard to control

Such neural interfaces currently attempt to squeeze information from tens of thousands of neurons at one time through roughly 100 channels.

This can mean the results are imprecise and filled with background noise.

Instead, Darpa wants its implants to communicate with single neurons in a given region of the brain, with the capacity to handle signals from one million brain cells.

A statement on Darpa's website said there were still significant challenges to be overcome before this goal could be achieved, including developing the hardware and computational techniques needed to handle the volume of data that would be produced by such implants.