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CNN Live At Daybreak

Bionic Technology Makes More Possible in Medicine

Aired February 08, 2002 - 05:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Through medical technology, doctors can give us an artificial limb and even a new heart. Now, imagine technology that would allow the paralyzed to walk or the deaf to hear.

As CNN's Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, technology involving bionics could make it all possible.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We first heard the term "bionics" from Steve Austin, the $6 million man. That was 1973. Time has made technology more expensive, but also more useful to real people.

The melding of human and machine, today it is being used not to run 60 miles an hour or see miles into the distance, but rather to regain mobility, restore vision and allow the deaf to hear once again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, everyone. How are you doing today?

GUPTA: At Neural Signals, one of the leading companies in the field, scientists are developing computer systems that respond to human nerve impulses.

DR. PHILIP KENNEDY, NEURAL SIGNALS, INC.: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to the skin, which is like a little pad electrode, and even if there is no movement, this offers some even small muscle activity and which must be associated with electro-activity, and we can pick that up.

GUPTA (on camera): That's the first use of bionics nowadays. The fancy term: peripheral computer interface. But basically, it makes hands and feet useful again. Who can forget the "Empire Strikes Back" and this scene when Darth Vader cuts off Luke's Skywalker's hand? Luke's hand was replaced afterwards with bionics.

Researchers say substituting wires for nerves is still many years away. But what about now?

(voice-over): We already know that computers can talk directly to the brain. But what about the brain talking directly to a computer? This monkey in Brooklyn can move a robotic arm in North Carolina just by thinking about it.

Johnny Ray, a quadriplegic, can move the cursor on this screen from an electrode inside his brain.

KENNEDY: And when we have a thought, we know that there is activity -- electro-activity in the brain. So we're trying to pick up some of that activity and use that in our simple systems just to control a computer cursor.

GUPTA (on camera): Here is how it works. Commands from a brain are read through a brain implant. It is placed inside the motor cortex, a part of the brain that controls body movement. As the patient thinks about a movement, the electrode picks up a signal, amplifies it and then transmits through the skin to a computer.

(voice-over): Bionics are already all around us, a cochlear implant, a morphine pump or even an artificial heart. They are all examples of this merging of electronics and biology steadily bridging the gap between human and machine.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Wow! For more medical headlines, including news on the health benefits of chocolate, oh yes! Join Dr. Sanjay Gupta on this week's Valentine Day edition of CNN's "FOR YOUR HEALTH." Bring your sweet tooth, and your sweetie of course, to the TV this Saturday afternoon at 2:30 Eastern Time.

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