period prison. dr. dickerson's though previously served as prime minister during the height of the economic crisis is keen to show he's in control presiding over the 1st working day of the new year. for decades, successive governments have implemented popular measures such as subsidizing fuel and electricity keeping interests low and filling the public sector with political appointees. all of this has created a massive financial burden and reducing that expenditure as part of a series of conditions to secure an i. m. f. bailout is not proving easy. mila fernandez, odors era, colombo, the national voodoo day festival, is being held and benign. ah, the country is widely seen as the birthplace of food and the celebration start with a ritual sacrifice of a goat. the festival also involves music, dancing and drinking alcohol. precision to the atlantic ocean pays respect to

enslaved ancestors who were taken away from panini. ah, well this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. the sour china has suspended, giving short term basis to south koreans. it's in response to covered 19 curbs imposed on chinese travelers measuring cause the measures discriminatory but sol says that based on science as the virus spreads and china katrina, you has more from beijing. sally's passengers must test before they brought their flight to south korea and on arrival. and if they found positive the cove at 19, they must quarantine for 7 days. zachary is also restricting visits with chinese travelers, as well as the limiting flights from china to south korea. so why is this happening now? well, this may not be the only reason carbonite in might not be. the only reason south

korea's parliamentary leader has recently visited taiwan and that would have no doubt agood day during the saudi arabia is removing all covered 19 restrictions for the harsh pilgrimage this year. its welcoming bag pre pandemic numbers of visitors to the holy size. the annual pilgrimage usually draws more than 2000000 people to the city of mecca. at least 17 people have been killed in southern peru during anti government protest. man, in the release of former president pedro kasteel, most of the deaths occurred when people try to over on an airport in the city of fury. arca priscilla's prison, st. louis and osceola. the sofa has criticized the army for not doing enough to stop supporters who shire both scenarios from storing the nations seats of power. nolan made the comments during a meeting with governors who he promised to punish those behind sundays attack. us president joe biden has push for tougher action on a legal migration and drugs in a meeting with the mexican leader in me. and ukraine says,

a russian rocket has killed 2 people and wounded for others in the village, southeast of high keefe or thirties and ship shewn, coff say a market was targeted both of the headlines. the news continues on al jazeera after the stream. one day i might be covering politics to reminisce. i post also from saba, hungary, to what's most important to me, just talking to people, understanding what they're going through so that i can be the head winds in the most human way possible. herodotus era, we believe every one has a story worth hearing. i i, i semi ok, you're going to saw this episode of the stream by meeting eric, sort of, eric received a gunshot wound which made him paralyze, meant that he couldn't actually use his arms. and what you're about to see is an implant going into his brain, look away. now,

if you don't like the sight of blood ok, hope you are fast without one. what the impact will allow him to do is to connect with a robot arm. and so now eric who couldn't use his arms and his hands is now able to access a robot arm which will pick up cups, move things around for him, do what his regular wasn't able to do. for the 1st time, in 13 years, eric could drink a beer unassisted. so researches of the university of southern california shared this with you. this is back in 2015. so this is not new technology, but the technology is getting so much better. so in today's episode, what does the future hold for brain implant technology? i know you have questions. i have to answer questions for your questions. your thoughts right here. be part of today's show. ah. hello, curtin, karen and alice ok to have you on board. i'm going to ask you to you very briefly

in 2 lines. introduce yourself to audience and explain your expertise in this a brain implant technology field cut you start. hi tammy, i every one. ah, well i am a curt hagstrom. i'm with a synchron in synchronous, a company that's developing a bring computer interface technology. i'm a biomedical by trade, by vertical engineer, by trade in over a little last 20 years. been delivering class 3 medical devices to the, the neuro vascular market. so i'm excited to be here and have the conversation yet to have you. welcome, carol, please say hello to have you as around the world. tell them who you are. what you day? i am karen ramo finger and i'm and aerotech assistant strategist, and i am trained as a neural scientist and ran a narrow effects institute for awhile. and i recently found a dinner, i think, thinking you tank and ran a boutique neurotics consultancy get to have you involved. hello, hello, welcome to the stream. these green,

our view is around the well tell them who you are and what you day. hi everyone. my name is anna wexler. i'm a professor of medical ethics at the university of pennsylvania. and i run a research lab that studies the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in neuroscience. all right, so i guess i think the biggest challenge is separating ourself from science, fat and science fiction. we have watched the movies where the side books take over . sandy has a brain implant in counting their head and then they go wild at every think goes upside down and it's chaotic. this is not what we're talking about. what we're talking about is brain computer interface or b, c. i karen briefly in an accessible way. what does that mean? great, thanks for asking the brain computer interface is really a communication device that connects the brain to an external computer. and there's

2 ways that that communication can happen. so one way is that the computer can fence electrical activity and send that to a prosthetic device. so in the example you gave, someone could drink a beer, who otherwise would be able to, or the device can work the other way, where it can said signals through electrical activity into the brain to help the brain function better. i want to bring in her head, cut it. yeah. interesting. what you are doing at synchron, which is trying to develop this technology so it can help people who have medical needs, physical needs. i am going to show to people who are chatting and this is video that you shared with us. so tell us what is happening here and why it is special. let's take a look. absolutely. right, so this is it no strain here. what are we seeing, hey, what are we looking at? cut. yes. so this is, this is one of our 1st patient in australia during the switch trial. and these patients are actually able to move the use

a digital environment. right now you're seeing an interface on the computer and these actions are all created with the motor intent that they've created when their brain. and this is all being signaled with a motor and neuro prosthetic called the sink on switch system. and so it reads that motor intent, it's almost if they had their fingers. so it's the motor intent of being able to touch and move this along the computer screen story. but the read that motor intent and then it's communicated out the infrared technology to a computer. and so the individual right there was so happy to be able to sit there and be able to communicate on that computer for the 1st time and, and tell his wife that he loved her, which was with ha, from that standpoint. and that instant they were use it before that communication piece. but these technologies go well beyond the think communication, i think, from a utility once you'd be able to control that digital environment. as you can imagine, that goes to an iphone, we had our 1st patient about a month ago,

control and i phone functionality. and so when you can do that, it goes off just a communication, say with a caregiver, but then you could do online shopping. you could communicate, you know, you could use social media, you can control your smart environment potentially. and so i think there's a lot of utility with what this concept of the motor neuro prosthetic. i mean, i think that's the big changes where it jumps from me, from science fiction, in the, the cyborgs to an actual medical device. and that's where, you know, we're governed by the, you know, the regulatory bodies of the various countries in the f d, a here in the u. s. and so again, we follow the rules of the classroom medical device and, and again we're on a phase of where we were research phase. now we're in that clinical phase and in the future, the commercial phase of the product. so very excited of seeing where that evolution over the last really 40 years, right? with dca has taken us today. i'm curious about what you're thinking and this is

part of the challenge with brain computer interface is people worrying about our thoughts being shared quite openly. so when you see some of these experiments, the development, what are you concerned about, or perhaps you're very happy about is going in the right direction. people been very careful. yes, that's a great question. so when it comes to the ethics, you know, there's a few things that i think we should be thinking about and, and 1st, you know, for any medical device or even any drug rate. the 1st, the most basic thing you on establish is safety and efficacy, right? so that's sort of the ground level ethics and you know, these devices, these neuro technologies also raise other really interesting ethical issues such as the one you mentioned privacy, right? so what sorts of data are being captured from the brain? what can they reveal about a person's thoughts and how is that data being protected? you know, and some of these protections may fall under, you know, current medical device regulations and enter hipaa protections at least here in the

u. s. right there, certain protections for medical information, but there's other kinds of information that may not be protected by by laws like hipaa. so i think privacy is a, is a major concern, you know, other concerns or things like the long term safety, right. so what happens when this device is implanted for? ah, you know, a very long time, right? we're talking 203040 years inside an individual's brain. and another, another top net. what does, what does it feel like we saw a at the very beginning of the, of the show eric's brain surgery. what does that feel like? do you know? do we know right now for eric? how was he feeling? how does he describe that feeling? what have you seen, how in, in an are up when you incur? and i think i wanted to, to share. so the way we experience our world is,

is really filtered through our brain. so anyone who has had a catastrophic injury of the brain or love one to the 6th grade or brain injury knows that your world and the way that you navigate it is altered. so brain technology has this opportunity to really have the transformative therapeutic potential. so someone like you showed there had, might have a last or had a stroke so they can't communicate anymore. now it's enabled a social life that they didn't have before. you know, my area of work used to be parkinson's disease where we have stimulators put in for people to restore movement. and i watched in the operating room as we turned on the stimulator. an individual who had uncontrollable movements be smoothed out with the changes in stimulation with electrical activity. and then there are people who have received that same kind of deep brain stimulation, to alleviate intractable untreatable depression. and their report from patients there who say that actually self report bit claim claim being a sideboard. but at the same time would say that their humanity was actually

restored by having this device. they now can live their life to the fullest and at the at best i think that's what we're a future. we're striving for technologies that can help empower people to live their most, their full list and their best lives. so come on, you che, bus, alman and alan is listening to our conversation and i, one describes this as a nightmare, b, c, i's a nightmare and can be highly dangerous. manatee, do you get that instant beer that comes from members of the public? do you understand that and, and how do you address it? yeah, it's actually from me, i can see the, the, the concern, because i think it's whether it's the, the, the media or even within movies. you know, this is a deep tech net technology in a very, on the forefront of technology. and i think karen karen and explain it very well above some of the concerns and some of the things that we need to continuously look at as far as this technology evolves. but when i look at this application to,

to humans, we're, we're talking about a very specific population in these patients that are, are locked in, were considered locked in. they have a last, a very progressive diseases. and this is where they, they had no longer have functions of their, their hands, their feet such as stephen hawkings. and so this gives them that back that independence. so when you have that type of severe paralysis, and there's actually more peace people than you think there's over 5000000, i think that in that severe paralysis around the world. so there's a lot of people out there that i think would like to regain that independence, that individuality be able to commute be able to get back to their daily living, to some degree. and so when i look at that, that's where we're focused. that's what our mission is to help be very patient focused and to ensure we create that independence for that patient. and so i think it's a, we're a very long way from that's being applied to enable body person in here at sync around again we're, we're our focus. you have to go through that clinical path in the f

d a and the regulated path. and so it's very important that there's utility and functionality for, for patients out there. i know that yeah, i think the fear or that it is that instinctual a thought like, oh my god, right, what's going to happen? we have b, c, s, i think that comes from this idea of, of a technology being able to potentially read our thoughts. and it's boring to say that we're not there yet. we're not completely reading thoughts at the moment. but you know, i think it's also important to point out that when we think about reading thoughts it's, it's important to think about what can be inferred about us right now from other mean. so for example, right on my phone, right, there's location data that people can take. there's my browsing, history's g mail or a google has my emails and have a whole profile me. so there's so much already based on my digital trail that can be inferred about my private life, and there's currently not good protections for that sort of data. so for me, the fear actually starts there from, from, from everything that's already being gathered about me. and so i,

i wouldn't say that privacy with brand computer interfaces is not a concern. it is a concern, but i think we have to start from all the information that's already being currently gathered about us. some of our viewers are listening to this conversation, watching this conversation and saying, what is this, what anything to do with it on mosque, a newer link, and in a mosque. and new link is, is one private company who are looking into brain computer interface. i'm going to show you part of their live test that they did on november, the 30th. so a little while ago. and what you will see here is a monkey stepping on. i think it's like a banana shake. so that's what's in its monkey's mouth, but he's gonna bring an implant in his brain and he is asking for snacks. and then along comes a little tablet and he decides which snack he wants to have. this is, you have to believe all of this is actually happening. so you have to believe the science cuz all i'm seeing is the video. and i, i'm a little skeptical as to the monkey really asking for those snacks. and who's to

say the a monkey doesn't think about snacks every 60 seconds anyway. so i feel that this is some issues every that's just because i'm probably a little bit skeptical here. but there's a, a point that came from one of our viewers, who wondered about experimentation and experimenting on animals. is that just what happens in this field of science? do you experiment and animals before you go to humans? anna, can you start? sure. so the answer to that is yes, usually experiment on animals before you go to humans and you usually start with smaller animals and then you proceed to mammals. before you get to humans, you have to establish certain, you know, safety and reliability, even in animal studies before you can move to humans. the reports that have come out about animal use at neuro link i would say are concerning. and they're concerning, mostly because of the number of animals. again,

if these reports are correct, that are being you. so the number of animals that were used, i forget the exact number in the reports, but it was far more than it's typically used in a study. another concerning point here is that there are a number of internal reports that were brought up. so there were employee complaints again allegedly about what was going on at neuro link and to employees. according to again, the reports actually left the company because of concerns about how animals were being treated so from you know, from the outside. again, based on the investigative report, it does seem like what was happening at neuro link was actually going a bit further. and i mean that not in a good way a bit further than what's normally done in research company. i'm going to hand and turned back to the important point that and i started with to about the notion of, of mind reading. i mean, not just so much narrative popular merit narrative of mind reading and even perpetuated. i think for the most kind of,

if i fiction that so pervasive these days around brain uploading and downloading that. that just isn't grounded in the reality of the science today. and we're constantly fighting against that, even if that's a desire, if not where we are. and what is mentioned by kurt and the technology that we have for brain. ready decoding, which is, it is actually a really involved, you ask, what does the patient for experience they experience a lot of effort. they experience a deep relationship with the researcher where they have to learn how you most of us are very lucky and that we can distinct. we want to say something and it comes out without any processing or real effort. these patients have to really concentrate and figure out how to connect that to the technology and then get it to do what they want to. i mean this is, there's sometimes can take years for leave prosthetic devices to, to work. so it's not like there's this $1.00 to $1.00. i want to move, i want to talk this thing comes out. it's actually quite difficult. so we're really

far from being able to do that. and i do actually, you know, it's a couple of things that i love to make just a couple of comments around, you know, just with the lawn mosque. and i'm not here to comment on a neuro link at all. but what i say in general, and especially how they, they're testing and stuff. but what i say in general, i think competition and more people that are focused on this and developing new technologies is a good thing for patients. i think at the end of the day, so i think that just broadly speaking of how we're looking at this and, but we obviously have to follow the, the regulated in the rules of governance of the countries that we reside in and things like that. as far as like how, you know, how close and how reality, i think, how close we are. you know, our technology is, is, again, a very minimally invasive. it's, it's not tethered to anything or a computer or anything in, within a short period of time. so i agree that it's almost like writing about yep, to train your body to do something that it's not just a like

a motor intent to run for it was showing animation because some of this is you kind of have to really appreciate it. so we've got and let me tell you this animation and then you can tell us when looking at cuz it really helps. here we go. yeah, yeah. so this is the, this central device right here that's up in the sinus or the vein up above the motor cortex of the brain. so the, the neat thing about the, the stench road in the syncron switch system is that we navigate up into the brain through the blood vessels. and that allows a very minimally invasive approach to apply this type of b. c technology. once that is, once that recording head is in that vein about the motor cortex, we can now read those raw digital signals, voter intense signals. matter fact, you can see the device right here that i'm holding. so it's just like a step like the by how that was in front of your face. yeah. can you see it at all in front of your face because we see it? yeah. very got receive. okay. yeah, yeah. and so this is, it looks like a stand,

incense have been used for probably the last 20 years, especially in the coronary space and stuff. so we've bounced the, the technologies that are out there to be able to go through the blood vessel and read the signals from the brain. and again, within a very short period of time, we're talking weeks that the person now has the, you know, there is some training. so we do have that like field engineers to give support to help the training to utilize the system. but it actually comes online within weeks and the patients able to do action using this utility of the system within a short period of time. again, usually within the 1st $3.00 to $6.00 weeks, they're, they're up and running and able to least do some functionality. and i think that's where learning as we go and there's gonna be more functionality. but we're exciting because again, this has real utility for fairly quickly with this technology. i know you look like you've got a question, go ahead. yeah, i just wanted to underscore, i should they have no financial relationship with any companies in the space. but what's interesting about syncron right, is that they're, you know, one of the only companies, it's not the only company that's avoiding direct neurosurgery. so i think what

they're, they're doing is, is really unique and they've actually been able to make a lot of progress. and i would say in terms of clinical trials, they're there further along than neural language. maybe had gotten more attention in the, in the media. but they're actually, you know, syncron doing really the work on the ground in the work. so i and then as the work . interesting, yes. i think that, you know, i think as we near the end of our time, you know, a lot of these technologies that you have to implant, they're going to be happening and very limited situation. swiss a clinician or a researcher, and i think maybe something to be on the radar of viewers are this protest proliferation of commercially available wearable headsets, an inner ear pieces that claim to record brain activity. and actually, the quality of most of those technologies is course it's poor. but that really hasn't impacted their sale or deployment. and despite maybe not even accurately

recording from the brain are really being able to derive much information about the brain, their beings, we're seeing them used in schools. we're seeing them being used in workplaces. and we've also heard reasonable concerns from parents and employers or employees who are wondering if there is going to be discrimination based on information that might not even be real. but thought to be real, that can, if i'm right, if i may, let me, let me just share this question because i view as a thinking, the same thing. so joe says, this technology needs to be highly regulated and it should be done very strictly. is that what you're saying the it's out there and maybe not that great at it's already in schools in an educational institutions. i think so right now, this is something that and i said to there are some regulations that these kinds of devices that collect biological or biometric information would fall under. but it's these inferences, these, these predictions of about people and how they might behave and how they might

think those are the types of things that aren't really protected yet. and there are a lot of, there's erica inter governmental trans national efforts right now working on looking for those gaps and regulation. but right now it's really up to the company and the end user and to, to kind of have the end user needs to have good hygiene, look through their look at what they can about their technology, follow those data policies that they can. some of them are inscrutable, that, that's a problem and for companies to be really looking ahead at the 1st misuse that they might anticipate with their technologies and to try to stay ahead of that. let me just give our audience one more example of what brain computer into facing can look like. and this is from a company called sin attack. and what you see here is a gentleman called tivo. he's in a french trial and he is to has a brain implant which will then in to face with a suit,

which will mean you can see here the extraordinary that t. beau who can't walk unaided is able to walk. what else is this technology able to do? if we look ahead into the future, what's possible in a sentence, i'm going to go to all 3 of you predict the future ada. what is possible? ah, what's possible? i think i can you know, a lot faster communication for people who need it. so we're talking about both healthy, you know, both people who need assistive technology so, so individuals are disabled, but perhaps even healthy individuals communicating raped with the computer. ah, interesting, karen, what is possible in the future in a sentence? i think these irreversible diseases and disorders that we've seen are going to be reversible, like we see walk again. and i also think we're going to see an interconnection for

everybody between brain devices and our internet of things. home with alexa and all that. wow. alexa, in our brain cut was possible not in your brain connected to connected to my rang, thank you for the correction professor and cut, go ahead here from my perspective, what i see in the future is, you know, thought 1000 people are patients that, that have disabilities now regaining independence in multiple ways, whether it's smart, you know, controlling smart environments, mobility that was a great technology just showed, are in there, just communicating with loved ones and getting back that functionality in their life. so, and i don't think it's too far off, you know, within the next 10 years, i think we're, we're targeting thousands people being able to utilize our systems such as b, c, eyes. so, and we're excited about it. but it is such an exciting field of technology and development and brand computer interface technology. i am wondering how much it may

cost us and if it will be available for everybody. but that is a conversation for another day. for now i will say thank you to cut and karen and annette. i knew you are excellent questions. we appreciate you see you next time take ah . in depth analysis of the days headlines from around the world. whatever the deed was offered to them, they have to sign because if they didn't, they wouldn't get in frank assessments. do you think diplomacy still spends a chance? i'm not very up to about any kind of negotiation informed opinions. everybody tweets. everybody's on tick tock, tick, tock doesn't vote. you have a winter,

it's going to be whole there. pretty soon. inside story of al jazeera palm for pathogens are increasingly affecting our lives with terrible consequences . a new documentary asks why that. we've learned any lessons from the h. i. v. epidemic in the fight against coven 19 have we ignored the global? so to put profits before people want to cost a time of pad or not just my name is the shop. that's net. i'm just a simple girl. with big jeans and best thing to do something big in the world of cinema. when asked to be mad to actually come to warm bee and live the dream. most of the artist in one be in laurie would in general,

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