Hi-tech brain implants could help overcome loss of speech

livemint.com:

reality: It will be very tough to turn these technologies into profitable products. The eligible patient population is small. The devices will be expensive and require specific expertise and training.

Early entrants to the market will face a hard path. The field’s big cautionary tale is the meltdown of Second Sight Medical Products, which developed retinal implants. In 2020, it began winding down before it merged with another firm, leaving people who relied on its bionic eyes in the lurch.

Yet, investment in this field is likely to pay off as broader applications are found. “As soon as you have the technology to read from a large number of neurons, or stimulate a large number of neurons, these technologies will be used for many things," says Cynthia Chestek, a biomedical engineer at the University of Michigan. Similar tech could help with her own work, she says, as such signals could help read muscle commands in people with spinal cord injuries.

Too much of the hype around BCI technology has centred on Musk’s musings about a world where cyborg-humans operate with enhanced consciousness. To be clear: If ever achievable, that’s decades in the future. Where Musk has helped is by stimulating interest and investment in the field.

That should help get the hardware (the actual brain implant) to a point that regulators feel comfortable with its long-term safety. Stanford researcher Jaimie Henderson has reminded reporters of what’s at stake for families. When he was five, his father lost much of his ability to communicate after a car accident.