We used to just read the brain. Now we can write to it. 🧠🔌 We investigate the BCI Revolution. We break down the breakthrough of Gert-Jan Oskam, the paralyzed man who walked again thanks to a "Digital Bridge" that wirelessly reconnected his brain to his spine. We also explore the darker, more sci-fi side: Synthetic Vision, where scientists are bypassing the eyes entirely to beam images directly into the visual cortex of the blind.

1. The "Digital Bridge": Walking by Wi-Fi. We analyze the Nature paper. We discuss the case of Gert-Jan Oskam, who was paralyzed for 12 years. We explain how the WIMAGINE implant decodes his intention to move ("Output") and wirelessly beams it to a stimulator on his spine, bypassing the injury and allowing him to walk naturally—even up stairs.

2. Writing to the Brain: The "Input" revolution. We expose the next frontier. We discuss Cortical Visual Prosthetics (like the Orion implant), which skip the optic nerve and stimulate the visual cortex directly to create "phosphenes" (flashes of light). We analyze how this could allow blind people to "see" a camera feed, effectively jacking a digital reality straight into their consciousness.

3. The Cyborg Future: Repair vs. Augment. We explore the ethics. We discuss the shift from medical restoration (helping the paralyzed walk) to human augmentation. We ask: once we can write to the brain, what stops us from uploading skills, memories, or ad-supported dreams? Is Neuralink the beginning of the "tertiary cortex"?.

The full list of sources used to create this episode can be found on our Patreon under https://www.patreon.com/c/Morgrain