Timeline of Research

1786 - Luigi Galvani discovers 'animal electricity' by using DC voltage to stimulate the dead tissue of a frog.

1790 - Alessandro Volta discovers effects of electrical stimulation on living tissue using DC voltage on his own ear.

1818 - Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, an inspiring fictional novel which speculated the plausibility of reanimating dead tissue.

1957 - Two french scientists identified relations between perceived sound and specific frequencies used in AC stimulation of the auditory nerve.

1970 - Researchers "Schmidt, Fetz, and Baker, established that monkeys could quickly achieve voluntary control over the firing rate of individual neurons in the primary motor cortex using a closed loop operant conditioning paradigm."

1972 - Dr. William House and Jack Urban produce the first commercial cochlear implant.

1978 - Dr. William Dobelle installed the first visual prosthetic, the Dobelle Eye, into the occipital lobe of two patients.

2000 - Miguel Nicolelis, and his lab at Duke University, generate an algorithm for decoding owl monkey brain activity for control of a brain-machine interface.

2002 - Dr. William Dobelle installs his second generation visual prosthesis on six more patients. He bypasses U.S. human testing bans by performing the surgery in Portugal. One patient was capable of driving a car within an hour of activation of the prosthesis.

2002 - Second Sight began testing the Argus, a retinal prosthesis similar the Dobelle Eye, in six patients.

2003 - Miguel Nicolelis and his team expand testing to rhesus monkeys.

2006 - Second Sight began testing their second generation retinal prosthesis on 75 patients.

???? - Andrew Schwartz, and his lab at University of Pittsburg, discovered cortical plasticity when they developed a robotic arm and BCI that allowed a rhesus monkey to feed itself bananas. 

???? - John P. Donoghue, and his lab at Brown University, develops a brain-machine interface to interface with a computer monitor.

???? - John P. Donoghue, and Cyberkinetics, develop the BrainGate and began FDA approved testing on five quadriplegics.

???? - John P. Donoghue, and Cyberkinetics, begin testing of BrainGate2.

???? - Jonathon Wolpaw and Dennis McFarland prove possibility of non-invasive EEG based BCI using learning algorithms to detect beta and mu wave modulation.

???? - Justin Sanchez, and the BMI lab at UF, use Markov Decision Processing and reinforcement learning to develop an algorithm for a brain-machine interface which allowed a rat to feed itself with a robotic arm.

???? - Dr. Theodore Berger, and his team at USC, develop a hippocampus prosthesis.

???? - Kevin Warwick, and his lab at Reading University, implanted himself with a median nerve BMI that was used bi-directionally, using output signals to control a robotic hand, as well as, input signals to augment his senses to include an ultrasonic range sensor. 

2002 - Kevin Warwick published a book on his research experiences titled "I, Cyborg".