Cyborg future on its way: Microchip brain implants will allow you to delete bad memories and fight disease, due out in about 15 years

A Silicon Valley company is looking to break new ground on developments in the ever-mysterious realm of our brain . Kernel, founded in 2016 by Bryan Johnson, is a personally-funded $100 million start-up looking to further understand the sensitive organ, and address neurodegeneration. By developing brain chips that allow you to “buy and delete memories”, Johnson aims not only to help individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, but to unlock the brain’s potential, and make it available to everyone. The brain chips being developed will aim to perfect the memory, delete unwanted memories, increase the rate of learning, and allow brain-to-brain communication. Furthermore, the brain chip will also allow you to “buy” other people’s memories and see (and experience) them for yourself. This technology, being so far from reality, may seem extremely expensive, but Johnson assures that it will be democratized – like a smartphone. Currently, the brain chips they are developing are focused on helping neurodegenerative diseases like epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and other forms of dementia. The company is currently testing it on patients with severe epilepsy. Johnson, however, doesn’t have expertise in the field of neuroscience. He relies on his contacts and other companies that have already begun research in this delicate field, and have employed personnel such as Theodore Berger, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of South California . Currently Chief Science Officer at Kernel, Berger’s previous research proved that the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory, can be replicated using mathematical modeling and computer software. Other notable Kernel personnel are Chief Scientific Advisor Ed Boyden, professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Chief Strategy Officer Adam Marblestone, a neuroscientist who previously worked with Boyden’s Synthetic Neurobiology Group. Tackling […]

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