The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives (Exponential Technology Series)

by Peter H. Diamandis

In 2015, Harvard chemist Charles Lieber was trying to solve a difficult problem in the new field of neuro-modulation. Over the past few decades, deep brain stimulators had been developed to help sufferers of Parkinson’s disease. While the patient remains awake, a hole is drilled through the skull and a device that sends electrical pulses to areas of the brain responsible for movement is inserted. It’s become almost a routine procedure. Over a hundred thousand devices have been implanted, and for patients who have exhausted all other medical options, deep brain stimulation remains the only way to improve motor control and lessen tremors. Unfortunately, there are side effects. Weird side effects. The tendency to develop a compulsive gambling problem is the most frequent issue. Workaholics becoming couch potatoes overnight is another. Chronic depression is a third. The reason? Size. If they had their way, neurosurgeons would like to impact the brain at a single neuron level, but today’s deep brain stimulators are too big for this precision. Trying to target individual neurons with today’s implants is, as MIT professor of materials science and engineering Polina Anikeeva pointed out in her 2015 TED Talk, “akin to trying to play Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto with fingers the size of a pickup truck.”