Recent scientific advances in the area of prosthetic devices have significantly improved the prospects of people who have lost their arms due to trauma or vascular disease. These advanced prosthetic devices are currently controlled with mechanical switches; BrainGate™ was created with the belief that once perfected, implanted neural interfaces will provide a more natural control of these devices. Using brain signals to control movement should enable more real-time responses and allow for more complex use of these artificial limbs.

The human brain is a parallel processing supercomputer capable of instantaneously processing vast amounts of information. BrainGate™’s technology allows for an extensive amount of electrical activity data to be transmitted from neurons in the brain to computers for analysis. Once implanted with a device like BrainGate™, the limits of the human brain become unbounded. BrainGate™ can connect your brain to the Internet, to a robot, or to a bionic arm. BrainGate™ could as easily be used to control a wheelchair or car with your mind, as it could to control a submarine. As Wired Magazine remarked after spending time with the first BrainGate™ patient at Cyberkinetics™, “In theory, once you can control a computer cursor, you can do anything from drawing circles to piloting a battleship.”