Shattered Nerves: How Science Is Solving Modern Medicine's Most Perplexing Problem
Physicians are now implanting manmade devices designed to enable the deaf to hear, the blind to see, and the paralyzed to move. Each of these seemingly miraculous “cures” are the fruits of a burgeoning field known as neural prosthetics. The immediate goal of this work is to reverse sensory and motor afflictions that heretofore have been beyond the pale of modern medicine. These implants that replace damaged circuitry in the nervous system, also hold the potential to resolve psychiatric illnesses, restore the ability to form memories in damaged brains, and to even endow the able-bodied with superhuman powers by extending the visible and audible wavelengths, and by increasing learning capacity.
In this new book I discusses the painstaking work involved in creating neural prosthetic devices that can be implanted with minimal tissue damage, and that must be able to withstand the saltwater-like environment inside the human body for extended periods of time.