A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when she was forced to have it removed.

A woman whose epilepsy was greatly improved by an experimental brain implant was devastated when, just two years after getting it, she was forced to have it removed due to the company that made it going bankrupt.

As the MIT Technology Review reports, an Australian woman named Rita Leggett who received an experimental seizure-tracking brain-computer interface (BCI) implant from the now-defunct company Neuravista in 2010 has become a stark example not only of the ways neurotech can help people, but also of the trauma of losing access to them when experiments end or companies go under.

  • xantoxis@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 months ago

    Letting this woman service her own brain implant isn’t just missing official proof of safety; it almost certainly isn’t actually safe.

    This is exactly the point; when this was a clear possibility that there would be no other option for her, they shouldn’t have been able to put the device in a person in the first place.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      But there’s always going to be the possibility of that. No company can guarantee that it won’t go bankrupt for at least several decades.

      (Plus, it sounds like this woman is better off having the implant and then losing it than she would have been if she never had it.)