"It's becoming a reality," said Justin Sanchez, director of the University of Florida's Neuroprosthetics Research Group. "We're designing electronics that we can interface with biological systems and we can use that to help people."
The "neuroprosthetic" chip, being developed at UF with a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, would be implanted directly into a patient's brain tissue, where it could gather data from brainwaves, decode them and stimulate other parts of the brain accordingly.
They are currently studying similar devices in rats and assessing an intermediary form of the technology - placing electrodes on the surface of the brain - in people.
They hope to have a prototype that could be tested on people within four years.
"The day may not be too far off when patients can control a prosthetic hand or leg just by thinking about it," Sanchez said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Nanotechnology Task Force released a report Wednesday, recommending that the FDA develop more thorough regulations regarding nanotechnology products and their testing.
