The Neurotechnology Revolution: “The future is here; it’s just not evenly distributed yet”

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On Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 29th, 2015, the Potomac Insti­tute for Pol­i­cy Stud­ies host­ed a sem­i­nar in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sharp­Brains titled, “The Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Rev­o­lu­tion: Mar­ket Trends & Impacts”. The sem­i­nar sought to ini­ti­ate a dis­cus­sion of the grow­ing trends in fund­ing and mar­ket devel­op­ment based on two recent­ly released reports on emerg­ing neu­rotech­nol­o­gy by Potomac Insti­tute and SharpBrains.

Dr. Jen­nifer Buss, Direc­tor of the Potomac Institute’s Cen­ter for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies pro­vid­ed open­ing remarks for the sem­i­nar and intro­duced the Potomac Institute’s Trends in Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Report. Unnati Mehta, the author of the report, pre­sent­ed some of the key com­po­nents of this report to the audi­ence. The report focused on the recent accel­er­a­tion in neu­ro­science research pub­li­ca­tions and tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment. Neu­rotech­nol­ogy can be used to fur­ther under­stand the nat­ural process­es of the brain, study and treat neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders and injuries, and enhance neur­al capa­bil­i­ties, result­ing in increased human intel­li­gence and effi­ciency. Out­side of the realm of health, it will be used in social con­texts to improve over­all qual­ity of life. Brain Com­put­er Inter­faces (BCIs), imag­ing capa­bil­i­ties, cog­ni­tive load and wear­able tech­nolo­gies have all improved rapid­ly and are being applied in mul­ti­ple fields.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & Co-founder of Sharp­Brains, pro­vid­ed remarks to sum­ma­rize and high­light some of the most impor­tant find­ings from Sharp­Brains’ Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy report. The report is a com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of more than 10,000 patent fil­ings that are trans­form­ing med­i­cine, health, enter­tain­ment, and busi­ness. He delved into the key trends and insights that define per­va­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ments, from expo­nen­tial intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty growth and tech­nol­o­gy acqui­si­tion from large com­pa­nies to the use of neu­ro-mon­i­tor­ing tech­nolo­gies and sen­sors in many social applications.

John Cam­mack, Man­ag­ing Part­ner of Cam­mack Asso­ciates, spoke about his obser­va­tions of sig­nif­i­cant growth in our under­stand­ing of the brain’s func­tion­al­i­ty in com­plex areas like con­scious­ness, aware­ness, atten­tion, and mem­o­ry. Because of these excit­ing, ground­break­ing find­ings in the field of neu­ro­science, entre­pre­neurs and inno­va­tors are look­ing to trans­late this research into a mar­ket for enhanc­ing human capa­bil­i­ties and brain fit­ness. These tech­nolo­gies will help us to improve out­comes for suf­fer­ers of men­tal ill­ness and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases and dis­or­ders, but they will also pro­vide nor­ma­tive datasets for use in large-scale research applications.

A pan­el dis­cus­sion fol­low­ing the speak­ers’ remarks involved the top­ics of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy per­son­al­iza­tion, the indi­ca­tors that neu­rotech­nol­o­gy invest­ment is here to stay, the impacts of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy on soci­ety, and pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions on advanc­ing neu­rotech­nol­o­gy. The neu­rotech­nolo­gies and their future iter­a­tions dis­cussed dur­ing the pan­el will pro­vide improved com­mu­ni­ca­tion and make soci­ety more pro­duc­tive. Along these lines, there are many oppor­tu­ni­ties to apply the avail­able sci­ence to gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy deci­sions in many areas. Addi­tion­al­ly, these grow­ing tech­nol­o­gy trends should be incor­po­rat­ed into pol­i­cy ideas for the suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, such as the President’s BRAIN Ini­tia­tive, so that we can make the most of the tremen­dous poten­tial that neu­rotech­nol­o­gy offers.

To watch full event record­ing (90 minutes):