Recently, the network
has information that a powerful thunderstorm has passed in the city of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. This event would have gone unnoticed, because you can hardly surprise anyone with a thunderstorm, albeit a strong one, if not for one moment. The lightning discharge during this thunderstorm struck one of the houses, as a result of which the TV, air conditioners, lights were turned off in the building, and the implant in the woman’s brain was also refused to work.
The implant was implanted in the brain in order to help it get rid of permanent cramps in the neck muscles. She suffered for a long time because of this problem, until the doctors helped the patient to cope with it with an electronic implant. After the lightning struck the house, the system refused to work and all the patient's symptoms returned.
The next day, a woman came to the doctor with a request to help restore the device’s performance, the principle of action of which resembles a pacemaker. The specialist examined the device and realized that the device simply turned off. With a high degree of probability, this happened after a lightning strike. The instructions for the device indicate that its carriers should be wary of the possibility of external factors that can change the normal operation of the device. For example, scanners can be dangerous because they generate a very powerful electromagnetic field.
The doctor who examined the patient,
published the results of the study of the implant after exposure to lightning in the authoritative edition of the Journal of Neurosurgery. At the end, the physician provides recommendations for patients with devices of this type, as in a patient. In particular, he considers it dangerous for them to be in a zone where a thunderstorm is possible. It is clear that using the recommendation will not be easy - after all, what can a patient with a pacemaker or brain implant do if there are thunderstorms next to it? Run away by car or plane? From all the thunderstorms in the world can not hide. Apparently, over the improvement of the design of the device will have to think of its creators.
The patient in question was lucky (except for broken appliances). The fact is that during a thunderstorm, she did not charge the batteries of her gadget. If she did, then the device itself would wait for the fate of household appliances in the house of a woman who had burned down during a thunderstorm. It may well be that the patient herself would suffer. Experts after the incident stated that during a thunderstorm it is better to protect both themselves and the device. How? Yes, just connect medical gadgets to the network through current stabilizers (for example, a bespereboynik with stabilization function).
The doctor who examined the implant revealed that the gadget was intact. This was facilitated by the fact that the developers have provided a patient safety system. When the current in the device rises to a certain level, the device simply turns off, making it impossible to damage the brain of the patient himself. As for the implant software and hardware module, they are also in perfect order. After turning on the device, it entered normal operation and functions as well as before the thunderstorm.
As for the implants themselves, there are now many, very different ones. And of course, the safety of the carrier must be a priority when creating such devices.
As for the devices themselves, they
wrote a lot about them at Geektimes. In particular, there are prototypes that allow, for example, to enable and disable memory - though not in humans, but in animals. Such systems are designed to study the functioning of short-term and long-term memory. In 2011, a team of scientists achieved the possibility of blocking long-term memory with its subsequent restoration using electrodes.
In 2017, experiments on humans with electrodes implanted into the brain also showed interesting results. Only memory was no longer blocked, but, on the contrary, it helped a person to better remember what he saw and heard. Thanks to special electrodes, short-term memory was improved to 35-37%.
The startup KerNEL is also developing implants, only for the purpose of commercializing this area. The company creates a system to restore memory, as well as to improve the attention and creative abilities of man. The startup, by the way, received $ 800 million in 2013 from PayPal. Creates implants and the company Ilona Mask. Now all this is at the initial stage of development, and the main goal is to improve human capabilities. The company Mask this year received permission to conduct experiments on animals.