CONCERNING THE CHALLENGE OF NEUROTECHNOLOGY

Publisher Summary The emerging field of neurotechnology deals with compensation of functional deficits of the human nervous system by means of novel computer and microsystems technologies. Neurotechnology requires the development of adaptive pulse-processing neural computers and novel multicontact neural interfaces to allow for functional substitution of and bidirectional communication with specific parts of the nervous system. Adaptive pulse-processing neural computers for neuroprosthetic applications have to serve a number of specific functions in different environments. Representative input or output indicates that only a small fraction of the nerve fibers of the contacted nerve or fiber tract will become available for bidirectional communication via the single-axon contacts of a multicontact neural interface. This chapter presents some theses that describe the reasons to start a joint effort in the field of neurotechnology.

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