surprisingly located in the forearm) to the digits. The surgeon must
painstakingly decipher the jumble of tendons and pair them correctly; to
cross up even one pair would garble hand function.
If matching those dozen structures is a surgical dilemma, how about
one billion neurons of the spinal cord? This is why surgery for displaced
vertebral fractures with spinal cord injuries is focused on stabilizing the
bones, and never on “repairing the nerves,” particulary when those nerve
axons are one-quarter the diameter of spider silk.
Alternatively, because the precise location of the motor and sensory
strips of the brain cortex are known, it will be likely in the future that
spinal cord injuries will be addressed with a bodily house rewiring project
(on a cosmic scale). Specialized sensory devices, called BioMEMs
(Micro-Electro-Mechanical systems) are being developed that sense our
brain’s illicitation of movement; the BioMEMs then connect with
peripheral nerves, bypassing the spinal cord. These miniaturized neural
probes are “integrated with circuitry for amplification, multiplexing, spike
detection, and the wireless transmission of power and bidirectional data,”
and “are facilitating prosthetic devices for many debilitating neurological
disorders.”^4
BioMEMs, made possible with advancements in nanotechnology and
electronic miniaturization, are transforming medicine. As surgery
becomes increasingly minimally invasive, the prospect of treating
devastating spinal cord injuries becomes more than a fantasy.
The story of the modernization of medicine usually starts with dread
diseases, and then progresses along a path of less severe maladies, until we
end up focusing on the inconveniences of life. Witness facial-plastic
surgery, initially focused on grotesque and offensive injuries like
syphilitic loss of the nose, but in time turning toward asthetic operations
based upon fluctuating cultural tastes.
The use of BioMEMs in the brain will surely continue along a path of
spinal cord injuries, stroke, brain tumors, cerebral palsy, and seizure,
eventually transitioning to less detrimental ailments like early dementia,
obsessiveness, moderate depression, and forgetfulness. I can predict with
great certitude that over the next generation all these conditions will be
treated with some type of brain implants to regulate neurologic function.
But what’s next? When it comes to the brain, will we turn from disease
to disability, and eventually to super-ability? Unquestionably.