Timeline
16 moments that made neurotechnology what it is. Each one is a publication, a first or a decision that can be looked up.
- 1791Luigi Galvani publishes his experiments on “animal electricity”: a frog’s leg twitches when its nerve is touched with metal.
- 1875Richard Caton records electrical activity from the exposed brains of animals.
- 1924Hans Berger records the first human electroencephalogram.
- 1952Hodgkin and Huxley publish their model of the action potential.
- 1957André Djourno and Charles Eyriès stimulate the auditory nerve of a deaf patient, who perceives sound.
- 1967Norman Shealy implants the first spinal cord stimulator for pain.
- 1973Jacques Vidal coins the term “brain–computer interface”.
- 1984The US Food and Drug Administration approves a cochlear implant for adults.
- 1985Anthony Barker demonstrates transcranial magnetic stimulation.
- 1987Alim-Louis Benabid shows that high-frequency stimulation deep in the brain suppresses tremor.
- 1990Seiji Ogawa describes the blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal, the basis of functional MRI.
- 1997Deep brain stimulation is approved in the United States for essential tremor, and vagus nerve stimulation for epilepsy.
- 2004The BrainGate pilot trial implants an electrode array in a person with tetraplegia, who controls a computer cursor.
- 2013The first closed-loop brain stimulator, for epilepsy, is approved in the United States.
- 2019The OECD adopts its recommendation on responsible innovation in neurotechnology.
- 2021A speech neuroprosthesis decodes words from the brain activity of a man who cannot speak; Chile writes protection of mental integrity into its constitution.