A Virtual Social Life Is Possible with Brain-Machine Interfaces

A major goal of the field of neuroprosthetics has focused on improving the lives of paralyzed patients by restoring their lost real-world abilities. This story is from the WIRED World in 2023, our annual trends briefing. Read more stories from the series here--or download or order a copy of the magazine. One example was the 2012 work by neuroscientists Leigh Hochberg and John Donoghue at Brown University. Their team trained two people with long-standing paralysis--a 58-year-old woman and a 66-year-old man--to use a brain-machine interface (BMI) which decoded signals from their motor cortex to direct a robotic arm to reach for and grasp objects.