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.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
      311·
      4 months ago

      It must suck to have that confidence, and therefore freedom, taken away.

      It does, yeah.

      Thanks for the comment, I was sitting here shitting, thinking how exactly did a company force someone to have brain surgery. Very sensationalist indeed.

    • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
      161·
      4 months ago

      Did you read it?

      She and her husband attempted to fight the demand, attempting to buy the implant outright and, as University of Tasmania ethicist and paper coauthor Frederic Gilbert told the Tech Review, remortgaging their house to do so. They were unsuccessful, and she was the last person to get the Neuravista BCI removed.