Brain-Computer Interfaces

• Chasing Captain America : How Advances In Science, Engineering, And Biotechnology Will Produce A Superhuman by E. Paul Zehr (2018)
  • Zehr (Project Superhero), director of the Centre for Biomedical Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, introduces readers to various existential threats that could potentially follow from attempts to create a real-life equivalent to Captain America. He methodically compares the theoretical requirements for creating a supersoldier with current science's ability to satisfy them. The major theme is how procedures intended to alter disabilities, some of which could be applied to the general population to enhance natural performance to superhuman levels, might contribute to actual threats to humankind, such as unintended mutations-or even unforeseen consequences of intended ones-affecting entire populations. Despite any ethical dilemmas, Zehr argues scientists must push forward, albeit with thoughtfulness and caution. (Publishers Weekly Review, excerpt)
• The Body Builders : Inside The Science Of The Engineered Human by Adam Piore (2017)
  • Sensing that biomedical research is on the cusp of a revolution, journalist Piore reports on what researchers are pursuing in the realms of prosthetics, tissue regeneration, and neuroscience. Hugh Herr had a strong motivation for a career in biomechanics: he lost both feet in a hiking accident. Setting a template for each scientist he introduces, Piore accompanies Herr through his MIT labs and recounts in lay terms Herr's explanations of his projects to develop artificial limbs. Other researchers with similar restorative goals are discovering the processes of tissue growth at the genetic and cellular levels and believe that growing an entire organ or hand will be possible. Piore also reports on efforts to restore sight and hearing, including a blind woman who can see with the hearing area of her brain. Piore visits research sites as varied as the Pentagon and a San Diego start-up called Dart NeuroScience, and he touches on the ethical aspects of augmenting human physical and mental abilities. Piore's informative and optimistic account will fascinate popular-science fans and all readers following developments in therapeutics. (Booklist Review)
• Brain Vs Computer : The Challenge Of The Century by J.P. Fillard (2017)
  • The range and sophistication of activities computers carry out has increased rapidly in recent years; these are expanding at an exponential rate. There are spectacular achievements: computer programs beating human world champions in chess, Jeopardy!, and Go. In addition, there are remarkable advances in what computers can accomplish in medical analysis, architectural design, complex decision-making, natural language processing, and robotics. The achievements are many and impressive. Nowadays, there is much debate on the limits of this artificial/machine intelligence, and whether it will surpass, or at least match, human intelligence in some areas where it lags behind, and whether this will pose a danger to human kind. This book offers a wide-ranging discussion of this topic, starting with a capsule description of the human brain. (Choice Review, excerpt)
• The Brain Electric : The Dramatic High-Tech Race To Merge Minds And Machines by Malcolm Gay (2015)
  • The Six Million Dollar Man, a popular mid-1970s TV show, featured the astounding exploits of an injured astronaut who was rebuilt with bionic implants an eye, an arm, and both legs. What seemed far-fetched and at times cartoonish back then is now on the verge of reality. Journalist Gay reports on dazzling research involving a brain-computer interface and a brain-controlled robotic arm. Readers are introduced to both ambitious scientists and patients with daunting neurologic problems, including physical paralysis and recurrent seizures. Technology, in the form of implants and electrodes, that seemingly melds machine with the human body is already in use: cochlear implants for deafness, deep-brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease or tremor, and retinal implants with microelectrodes countering severe vision loss. One neurosurgeon declares, Machines are becoming more and more enmeshed in our personal sense of ourselves. Once implanted, these devices are indeed us. The Brain Electric convincingly illuminates the ways current biomedical research and breakthroughs in neuroprosthetics are steadily gaining ground on what was once wild science fiction. (Booklist Review)
• The Future Of The Mind : The Scientific Quest To Understand, Enhance, And Empower The Mind by Michio Kaku (2014)
  • The Future of the Mind brings a topic that once belonged solely to the province of science fiction into a startling new reality. This scientific tour de force unveils the astonishing research being done in top laboratories around the world—all based on the latest advancements in neuroscience and physics—including recent experiments in telepathy, mind control, avatars, telekinesis, and recording memories and dreams. The Future of the Mind is an extraordinary, mind-boggling exploration of the frontiers of neuroscience. (Book Summary, excerpt)
• The Man With The Bionic Brain : And Other Victories Over Paralysis by Jon Mukand (2012)
  • When a knife severed his spinal cord, Matthew Nagle was instantly transformed from an active young man to an individual who could neither feel nor move below his upper shoulders and who was dependent on a machine for every breath and on others for help with every bodily function. Rehabilitation medicine specialist Mukand (medical director, Southern New England Rehabilitation Ctr.; editor, Vital Lines: Contemporary Fiction About Medicine) tells Nagle's story unflinchingly, showing the injury's brutal physical and emotional impact on Nagle and everyone in his life, but also in a way that will move readers. Mukand worked with Nagle as he became a research recipient of BrainGate, a device implanted in his brain that recorded brain waves and eventually allowed him to gain some control over a computer cursor and a robotic hand. (Library Journal Review, excerpt)
• Brain-Computer Interfaces : Principles And Practice by Jonathan R. Wolpaw (2012)
  • In the last 15 years, a recognizable surge in the field of Brain Computer Interface (BCI) research and development has emerged. This emergence has sprung from a variety of factors. For one, inexpensive computer hardware and software is now available and can support the complex high-speed analyses of brain activity that is essential is BCI. Another factor is the greater understanding of the central nervous system including the abundance of new information on the nature and functional correlates of brain signals and improved methods for recording these signals in both the short-termand long-term. And the third, and perhaps most significant factor, is the new recognition of the needs and abilities of people disabled by disorders such as cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophies. The severely disabled are now able to live for many years and even those with severely limited voluntary muscle control can now be given the most basic means of communication and control because of the recent advances in the technology, research, and applications of BCI. This book is intended toprovide an introduction to and summary of essentially all major aspects of BCI research and development. Its goal is to be a comprehensive, balanced, and coordinated presentation of the field's key principles, current practice, and future prospects. (Book Summary)
• Beyond Boundaries : The New Neuroscience Of Connecting Brains With Machines--And How It Will Change Our Lives by Miguel A. L. Nicolelis (2011)
  • Nicolelis defines his field of research as systems neurophysiology, and he guides interested readers to the frontier of brain knowledge in this account of his and colleagues' experiments. Their practical objectives are the development of a brain-machine interface and, ultimately, a brain-to-brain interface. It seems that the former has been achieved in rudimentary fashion, as Nicolelis describes his Duke University lab's success in rigging a primate so that its brain's neural firings actuate a robot in Japan. Many images clarify scientists' techniques for wiring up and measuring their clinical subjects, while Nicolelis' explanatory text regularly steers into smiting his intellectual rivals, whom Nicolelis characterizes as holding that specific locations exercise brain functions, whereas he maintains that the brain operates in a distributed way, even as a biological version of physics' relativity. As readers mull over the debate and absorb Nicolelis' relativity idea, his conclusion outlines optimistic visionary predictions for neuroscience that will alert them to what's coming down the pike in technology-driven human evolution. (Booklist Review)

See also our booklist from January 8, 2018: Biomedical Engineering for more suggestions.