Galen Buckwalter didn’t do it hesitate to perform a craniotomy in 2024 as part of the Caltech brain implant study. The 69-year-old psychologist wanted to contribute to the development of cutting-edge science that could assist other people suffering from paralysis.
Buckwalter has been a quadriplegic since a diving accident at the age of 16 that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Six chips in his brain, manufactured by Blackrock Neurotech, read the activity of his neurons and decode his movement intention. They enable him to operate a computer with his thoughts, feel the feeling in his fingers that he has lost, and, most recently, create music with his mind.
The technology, known as brain-computer interface, or BCI, is being developed by Elon Musk’s Paradromics, Synchron, Neuralink and other companies to restore communication and movement to people with severe mobility disabilities. However, Buckwalter’s experience shows that this technology can be used in more than just functional ways – for example, as a means of inventive expression. Other BCI recipients exploit their implants to create digital art with their thoughts. AND Exhibition in the gallery 2023 The works of BCI laureates Nathan Copeland, James Johnson and Jan Scheuermann were presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.
Buckwalter worked with Caltech student Sean Darcy, who developed an algorithm that allowed him to create musical sounds on a computer using thought. Buckwalter, a longtime musician with the Los Angeles punk rock band Siggy, used some of the sounds he composed in the lab on the song “Wirehead,” which is also the title of the band’s latest album, released March 15.
WIRED spoke with Buckwalter about what it’s like to create music with your mind. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WIRE: You recently started using your implant to produce musical tones. How did this happen?
Galen Buckwalter: Even before I was implanted, I saw this clip that was circulating on YouTube about mushrooms, where if you put electrodes on mushrooms, you get biosonification. This will amplify the electrical activity taking place in the mushroom and you will hear these really nippy sounds. I saw this and thought: if a mushroom can chirp like that, I want to know what my brain sounds like. This was something I had planned and wanted to do with the Caltech team. From day one, I talked to all the researchers about it, and an amazing student, Sean Darcy, heard about it. He spent his weekends and nights developing software that translates what I think into the ability to manipulate tones.
This allows you to create musical sounds just by thinking. How does it work?
Each neuron has a fundamental firing frequency. All of these neurons fire to some extent, but we identify the neurons over which I have volitional control. Each of my six implants has 64 independent recording channels, and we have a gigantic screen with all 384 channels. So if I think about moving my finger up and down, several channels will delicate up. There appears to be a directional set of neurons that only pick up from the extension and flexion of my finger.
Sean attributes the tone to the base rate of fire. If I activate this neuron, the pitch will raise, and if I suppress it, it will decrease. I think about moving my index finger, and then I think about moving my little finger, and I can do that for as many channels as I have volitional control over. Right now I can do two tones at a time, but if you push past that limit it’ll feel like you’re rubbing your head and patting your stomach at the same time.