Devices

DARPA's Neural Engineering System Design program (announced 2016, performers named 2017): a funded push for an implantable interface that reads a million neurons and writes to a hundred thousand. The program is now complete.

Device — Other

DARPA NESD program

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DARPA · NESD · program · high bandwidth · sensory cortex · Paradromics · Brown · Columbia · Berkeley · academic · research

DARPA NESD program

One-line verdict: Not a single device but the US government’s stated target for how big a cortical interface should get. It sets the scale that individual probes and arrays are measured against.

Quick tags: Program · Sensory cortex · US · Announced January 2016

Overview

What it is: The Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program, run by DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office. Its stated aim is high-resolution neurotechnology for injury and disease affecting the visual and auditory systems of military personnel.

The target: An interface that can read 10^6 neurons, write to 10^5 neurons, and interact with 10^3 neurons full-duplex, a far greater scale than DARPA says is possible with existing neurotechnology. The January 2016 announcement described a fully implantable device no larger than one cubic centimeter.

Who was funded: In July 2017 DARPA announced contracts to five research organizations and one company: Brown University; Columbia University; Fondation Voir et Entendre (The Seeing and Hearing Foundation); John B. Pierce Laboratory; Paradromics, Inc.; and the University of California, Berkeley.

Status: DARPA’s program page says the program is complete and the page is no longer maintained.

Spec Card Grid

Identity

  • Sponsor: DARPA, Biological Technologies Office
  • Announced: 19 January 2016; performers announced 10 July 2017

Targets (program goals, not measured results)

  • Read: 10^6 neurons
  • Write: 10^5 neurons
  • Full-duplex: 10^3 neurons
  • Size goal: about one cubic centimeter, fully implantable (2016 announcement)

Evidence and limits

  • Not covered here: what each team actually built and measured. Those results belong on separate entries; Brown’s wireless work appears elsewhere in this catalog
  • No 3D model: there is no single device geometry to model

References