Engineers at Rice University are building a flat microscope and software that can decode and trigger neurons on the surface of the brain as part of a new government initiative to help restore sight and sound to those with impairments.
The project is reportedly part of a $65 million effort by the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a high-resolution neural interface. Among many of the program's long-term goals, the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program reportedly that hopes to compensate for a person's loss of vision or hearing by delivering digital information directly to parts of the brain that can process it.
The Rice engineering team will reportedly first focus on vision, developing an optical hardware and software interface that will be able to detect signals from modified neurons that generate light when they are active.
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