Cognitive Prostheses
Cognitive prostheses seek to restore cognitive function to individuals with brain tissue loss due to injury, disease, or stroke by performing the function of the damaged tissue with integrated circuits. The theory of localization states that brain functions are localized to a specific portion of the brain. However, recent studies on brain plasticity suggest that the brain is capable of rewiring itself so that an area of the brain traditionally associated with a particular function (e.g. auditory cortex) can perform functions associated with another portion of the brain. (e.g. auditory cortex processing visual information). Implants could take advantage of brain plasticity to restore cognitive function even if the native tissue has been destroyed.
Read more about this topic: Neuroprosthetics
Famous quotes containing the word cognitive:
“Realism holds that things known may continue to exist unaltered when they are not known, or that things may pass in and out of the cognitive relation without prejudice to their reality, or that the existence of a thing is not correlated with or dependent upon the fact that anybody experiences it, perceives it, conceives it, or is in any way aware of it.”
—William Pepperell Montague (1842–1910)