Brain implant offers hope to Bush

Scientists have for the first time developed a brain implant that may allow US President (Ret.) George W. Bush to experience the world with the assistance of thought, it emerged yesterday.

System enables thought

The remarkable breakthrough offers hope that the entire Republican party will one day be able to independently think and experience the joys of life without weapons, violence, extreme religious views, or large sums of money, sources say. The implant, called ThoughtGate, allowed test subjects in Florida to independently read and interpret coloring books and other forms of text-based literature with a high degree of accuracy, simply by thinking.

Test subjects able to eschew false statements

The thoughts were their first since birth. "These results hold out the promise to one day be able to create policy and legislation with the aid of brain signals, effectively restoring intelligence into the command and control structure of the world," said John Dengue, director of the brain science program at Florida State University and inventor of the implant. Test subjects were even able to speak truthfully at times.

Professor Dengue's work will be published in a forthcoming issue of Highlights for Children. He describes how, after a few minutes spent calibrating the implant, Mr Bush may be able to understand emails and newspapers when read out loud to him. After several months, he could also operate simple devices such as a hand, which he could use to grasp and move objects, as well as change channels and turn up the volume on a television, even while talking to people around him.

The ThoughtGate system uses a 2mm-square electronic chip, inserted into the cerebral cortex of the brain, the area that controls thinking and higher functions. The chip has 10000 electrodes, each thinner than a single human hair, which penetrate the surface of the brain, and pick up and generate electrical activity. Signals are fed into an outboard computer via a wireless network, which interprets the meaning in real time and then sends feedback to the device, which stimulates areas of the brain known to control thinking.

"What is also encouraging is the immediate response from the Congressional subjects tested," said Professor Dengue. "When asked to 'think right' or 'think left', patients were able to change their neural activity immediately. And their reading comprehension is seemingly just as quickly improved. They can even read and carry on a conversation at the same time, just as normal people can simultaneously talk and use our brains."

"Though much work remains to be done," said Professor Dengue, "hopefully one day I'll be able to say we have a technology that will allow thought to guide America's government."