Of all the powers that we have imagined for the cyborg, which do we most covet? Their ability to see and sense detail in the environment? The ability manipulate things with the dexterity and power of a machine? Or perhaps it would be to command vast amounts of information which can be processed at tremendous speed?

If you chose none of those, you chose as any cyborg likely would have. The cyborgs greatest power, that from which it derives the most satisfaction (to use that term loosely), must be the ability to see itself. As humans, we are a mystery unto ourselves. If we were suddenly presented with one of our own organs from beneath our skin, before the panic set in, we would be taken by the awe and mystery that a mother must feel after the delivery of her child. To know the mass inside our skull will be to know ourselves and to control what we might become.

How are we to do this when the little that we really know of the brain today has come only after its peril? Without sufficient foresight and precaution we probably wont. If care is taken to preserve existing structure and function while mapping and expanding the brain according to the principles which construct it, the addition of machine components which might interact at the level of the perceived mind, may give us the power we have imagined for the cyborg. The best hope we have of maintaining the integrity of our existing neural structure in the face of the onslaught of new computing machinery, is to bridge the two with additional, nonessential wetware which we can afford to radically and perhaps reversibly, modify.

How much extra room might we have in our heads for any of this? On average we have around 1700ml of available space in our skull. 1400ml of that is the brain itself, 150ml is for the blood, and 150ml for the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in which the brain floats. An additional 30ml of CSF circulates inside a network of chambers in the center of the brain known as the ventricular system. It is here that perhaps the best site for the first extensive cyborg mods exists.

The ventricles are lined with a particular kind of cell that is very similar to the stem cells that generate new neurons. New cells generated here (and in parts of the olfactory system) generally migrate to predetermined locations, but artificial conduits for these newly generated neurons might direct them into close association with new hardware. While there are many ways that these new neurons might communicate with hardware, those that afford for them the use of their existing transmitter systems would be the least demanding.

The ventricular system is a perfect location to add recording and stimulation electrodes or optodes (the optical equivalent of electrodes.) Many areas of brain central to memory formation and retrieval, but often compromised in disease border the ventricles. To therapeutically pace or stimulate the fornix, the major output of memory systems within the hippocampus, from within the adjacent lateral ventricle makes a lot more sense than destructively plunging right through intact tissue. Small devices can be introduced fairly non-invasively through a natural opening called the median aperture at the base of the 4th ventricle underneath the cerebellum. There is so much anatomical variation among different people that surgeons today would scarcely consider trying to find these tiny openings, but as robot control and in-surgery imaging are increasingly brought to bear, the least invasive methods will be preferred.

Originally posted here:

Rise of the cyborgs