Brain Neuro-Chips A First Step Toward New Bodies

By James Donahue

March 2006

We are sure that a lot of people who have heard Psychic and Prophet Aaron C. Donahue’s predictions of future humans moving into improved silicone-based bodies to escape the ravages of space travel and existing on an overheated and hostile planet found the story difficult to believe.

His comments about genetically altered super human children, born to solve problems, lead nations and guard our shores, brought a chorus of guffaws from some of the Canadian callers during his Monday-night appearance on CIBU’s Bull Pen.

But people who know Aaron up close and personal know that he never says such radical statements without being able to back them up with scientific evidence. And one news report from Europe reveals what many might see as startling proof that science is moving rapidly toward linking the human brain with computer technology.

By achieving this, we are moving rapidly toward a day when humans will be capable of moving out of their worn out earthly bodies and into machines. And if they can do that, the prospect of building improved and redesigned bodies out of silicone may be more possible most people realize.

It seems that European researchers have developed “neuron-chips” in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

Stefano Vassanelli, of the University of Padua, Italy, said the neuron-chip may some day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or develop organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

Indeed, Donahue has talked about using human brain cells to operate a computer switch in the time machine that he wants to build. He says the brain operates faster than any man-made computer chip and it will take this kind of speed to run such a machine.

To create this neuron-chip, the university team squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip only one millimeter square. That is nano-technology to the extreme.

The team also used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. These proteins act as more than an adhesive, however.

“They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip,” Vassanelli said.

He said the proteins allow the neuron-chip’s electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons have been recorded, using the chip’s transistors, while the chip’s capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

Vassanelli said it may be decades before this kind of technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers.

It is clear that scientists are well on the way of accomplishing something that Donahue has been talking about for several years.