The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced the launch of the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program, which aims to develop non-invasive methods for controlling various thought systems. It selected six teams from different universities to develop bidirectional brain-machine interfaces for use by qualified personnel. These interfaces will allow "to control active cyber defense systems, a swarm of unmanned drones or communicate with a computer system." DARPA wants to get an appropriate control system within the next four years.
According to Al Emondi, head of DARPA's biotechnology department and N3 program curator, there are already many non-invasive neurotechnologies in the world, but not in the solutions required to create high-performance wearable devices for national security tasks.
In particular, we are talking about the development of technologies that will allow for just 50 milliseconds to read and write new information into brain cells in both directions and interact with at least 16 different points in the brain with a resolution of 1 cubic millimeter (this space covers thousands of neurons).
As noted in the press release published by the agency on its official website, the Battel Memorial Institute, Johns Hopkins University, PARC, Rice University, as well as scientists from Carnegie Mellon University are taking part in the program to develop non-invasive methods of controlling various systems by the power of thought.
According to Al Emondi, the four-year program will have three development phases. In the current first phase, teams will have one year to demonstrate the ability to write and read information from brain cells. Teams that succeed in solving this problem will advance to the next stage of the program. Within its framework, they will have to develop and test prototypes of devices using laboratory animals within 18 months. Teams that meet this challenge will be allowed to move on to the third phase of development - testing their devices with human volunteers.
The press release also states that each team has taken a different approach to developing the desired system. Thus, Battel Memorial Institute deals with a system with a minimum level of invasive intervention. It consists of an external transceiver with electromagnetic nanotransducers that communicate with specific neurons. Nanotransducers will convert electrical signals of neurons into magnetic signals, which will be received and analyzed by the transceiver. The same process will take place in the opposite direction.
Johns Hopkins University, in turn, is engaged in a completely non-invasive, coherent optical system. It monitors changes in optical path length in neural tissue that will correlate with neural activity.
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PARC's project combines ultrasonic waves and magnetic fields to generate localized electrical currents for neuromodulation.
Rice University is striving to create a minimally invasive system for determining neural activity through diffuse optical tomography. To transmit the signal in the opposite direction, that is, to the brain, the team will use a magnetic-genetic approach.
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University prefer a device that uses an acousto-optic approach to extract information from the brain and electric fields to program specific neurons.
Nikolay Khizhnyak