This, ahem, "experiment" has already been attempted in Britain by the notorious
Kevin Warwick, a professor in the
Cybernetics Dept. at the Univ. of Reading. Basically, he implanted a silicon chip "transponder" under the skin of his forearm. When he passed by certain equipment- it recognised the transponder and performed certain actions e.g. walking up to a door in the lab would cause the door to open. The cynical amongst us might point out that having the transponder in yuor pocket would cause exactly the same action, and wouldn't require surgery...
His next experiment was similar but involved attaching the transponder to the epineurium (sheath) of one of the nerves of the arm- the idea was that the transponder would pick up signals (eg the axonal activity caused by touch sensation, or pain) and then that these signals could be sent to a computer and encoded as "patterns" (eg one pattern for holding a pen, one pattern for being pricked by a pin). These patterns could then be analysed and even sent back to the transponder, where it could now act as an output device, and cause the sensation that was encoded! There was even talk of implanting Prof. Warwick's wife with an identical transplant and putting them in continual communcation, so that for example, when Warwick stroked a kitten, his wife would hae the sensation of kitten-stroking.
Not surprisingly for those of us that have neurological/neuroscientific training, the results from this study have never seen the light of day. The ideas are flawed from top to bottom. Warwick's main mistake is that his second experiment has no relation to the first. The first (having a transponder that identifies individuals) is marginally interesting, if overblown (the transponder doesn't have to be surgically implanted to work) - his idea is "The chip implant technology has the capability to impact our lives in ways that have been previously thought possible in only sci-fi movies. The implant could carry all sorts of information about a person, from Access and Visa details to your National Insurance number, blood type, medical records etc., with the data being updated where necessary."
Im sure fellow /. readers find that scary rather than necessary!
Anyway, that "experiment" (more like a beta test) doesnt logically lead to the second nerve implant. His lack of elementary neuroscience is evident here- peripheral nerve trunks are not good places to encode data- and if he did manage to "record" patterns for himself - how could he "play" them back on his nerves? A simple magnetic transponder? It would be like trying to email a GIF to someone by holding an industrial elctromagnet next to a bundle of phone-wires! And the thought that recorded patterns could be played back on another person's CNS using such crude technology is simply unbelievable.
Professor Warwick is regarded as something of a quack in the UK high-tech/neuro community, as this site, Kevin Warwick Watch, testifies. His research, however, does raise one or two interesting questions. His techniques and methods, though, are nopthing more than circus sideshows, compared to the excellent work with the mollusc neurons.
