We have stepped into an era where technology and medicine are escalting to powerful levels. Though incredible break throughs have been recorded here and there, there is still need for more human trials when experimenting with the new Neuralink. Neuralink is a company founded by Elon Musk where he is developing a brain chip. In the article, "Elon Musk says Neuralink's brain chip will be 'similar in complexity level to smart watches'" Musk says that this brain chip will be able to cure neurological diseases such as Parkinson's diseases. Similarly in a recent article published April 11th of this year, a neurotechnology company called Synchron, had a human trial to implant a chip into a vein just below the skull. The patient for this trial was a man names Philip who suffered from MND, motor neurone disease. This disease left Philip without fine motor skills such as the ability to send a text message or even holding a pen. Without hesitation, Philip was on board with the procedure that could have led to severe life-threatening outcomes. Fortunately, the chip in Philip's case worked. The chip was designed to read the brain signals and allow for Philip to write something with him mind. His disorder may have taken away most of the things he could no longer to for himself, but he was able to get some it back and have more control over fine motor skills using only his mind.
As great as this chip worked for Philip, it is not guranteed that it will similarly for other patients with other neurological diseases. The same article, "The brain implant that can translate your thoughts into texts," brought in another example of a girl named Hannah, who experiences brain seizures. This is a different patient with a different neurological disease. Hannah has been dealing with seizures for a while and one of the hardest parts about them is constantly wondering and worrying when the next one was going to come. The device implanted into Hannah's head was developed to read the neural activity to predict Hannah's next seizure. But, even though the device was successful it was reading that Hannah was having over 100 seizures a day. Seeing the device showing a red light everytime she was having a seizure made Hannah think differently. She lost herself trying to find away to relief the worry. There was a psychological reject to the implant even though the implant itself worked exactly like it should have. These two examples show the positive and negativve effects of mixing technology and medicine. There is no clear cut way to know if the person with the implant will react positively or negatively, which neurological diseases will benefit the most without psychological rejections, and to see how animal studies comparable to how the device will work on a human.
There are many benefits to this new developing world of AI and medicine, especially for neurological diseases. But, as exciting it may be, researchers, doctors, and technological developers have to remember how this may impact a human trial subject psychologically. The person is still a person, as moral human beings we are to do the most and best for another without inflicting harm. In some cases, because of how new these brain devices are, we are not aware of the harm that can be done but we are aware of the possibilities such as any other operations in the medical field. One way to look at this is from a talk by Professor Joe Vukov's where he presented an ethical argument, Treatment vs. Enhancement. There is a clear distinction between two. Treatment means we are restoring an ability that was lost. While enhancement is when we are adding to what is already healthy and making it even better. Are we using brain devices for the right reasons? Therefore, with respect of the patient and the mindset of curing the neurological disease the care implented while designing the devices and implanting them and careful observation afterwards, there can be many life changing experiences for many people around the world.
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