Futures Foundation

Connecting a human brain to a computer is as much a materials science problem as a biology one. What kind of interface is delicate enough not to damage nerve tissue, but resilient enough to last decades? Researchers have come up with what they call a “stealthy neural interface” made from a single carbon fiber and coated with chemicals to make it resistant to proteins in the brain. The new microthread electrode, designed to pick up signals from a single neuron as it fires, is only about 7 micrometers in diameter. That is the thinnest yet developed, and about 100 times as thin as the conventional metal electrodes widely used to study animal brains.

More details can be found here:http://www.technologyreview.com/news/507121/a-carbon-microthread-that-makes-contact-with-the-mind/

The Human Brain Project, with its billion-dollar plan to recreate the human mind inside a supercomputer, sounds like a science fiction nightmare. But those involved hope their ambitious goal of simulating the tangle of neurons and synapses that power our thought processes could offer solutions to tackling conditions such as depression, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's. The Human Brain venture is the next step in a long-running program that has already succeeded in using computers to create a virtual replica of part of a rat's neocortex -- a section of the brain believed to control higher functions such as conscious thought, movement and reasoning. If the team’s current bid for $1.3 billion of European Commission funding over the next 10 years is successful, the prediction is that neuroscientists are a decade away from producing a synthetic mind that could, in theory, talk and interact in the same way humans do. Sean Hill, a senior computational neuroscientist on the project, said, "This is a tool for research, not a giant simulated brain that is going to rule the world. Right now, we're in a crisis in neuroscience. There's a lot of wonderful data being gathered but we don't have a place where we can put those experimental results together and understand their implications.”

More details can be found here: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429494/the-dementia-plague/