Vertebrane is the ultimate video game controller. Here's how it will work.
Imagine that you want your in-game body to act just like your biological body. Your goal is to disconnect your brain from your biological body and connect it to a virtual in-game body that is better than your own. In particular:
It is the same for sounds and other sensations. Sounds from the game need to flow straight into the auditory nerves coming from your ears. Sensations of taste and smell from the game need to flow directly into the nerve pathways from your nose and tongue.
The sense of touch is handled by hooking directly into the spinal cord. That lets us pick up all touch sensations from every part of the body below the neck. The spinal cord connection also allows Vertebrane to gain control of all the body's main muscle groups as well. Similar smaller taps gain access to facial muscles and touch sensors as well.
The idea is to pump artificial sensory perceptions from your in-game body right into these main sensory nerve bundles as they enter the brain. In a similar way, all of the messages from your brain to your muscles flow to your in-game body and it moves accordingly.
In other words, the Vertebrane system installs shunts into every nerve pathway connecting to your brain. That happens both with sensory nerve fibers heading toward the brain and with a muscle control fibers heading out. Then the Vertebrane system can disconnect your brain from your biological body and connect it to an in-game body in a completely natural and realistic way. Your virtual in-game body is your body as far as your brain is concerned, and your immersion in the game is complete.
Living with Vertebrane
The Vertebrane system itself is a small but extremely powerful computer system. It might be manufactured so that it replaces one of the upper cervical vertebrae in your spine. A small fuel cell is packaged with the computer, and it uses glucose in the blood for power.
Robotic surgeons install the Vertebrane computer in your spine. They sever the spinal cord and reroute it into the Vertebrane computer. There are also taps into all of the major sensory nerve pathways like the optic nerves and the auditory nerves.
The Vertebrane system is wireless, and it has several modes. In one mode, it is completely pass-thru. All the nerve messages to and from your brain pass through the Vertebrane system as though it is not there. Your body behaves completely normally. As far as you are concerned, the Vertebrane system is invisible.
In another mode, the Vertebrane system disconnects your brain from your body and reconnects it to an in-game body. This in-game body has the same 600 muscle groups that your natural body has, and your brain controls all of these virtual muscles in the same, completely natural way that you control your biological muscles. The eyes of your in-game body replace your natural eyes. The same is true for touch, taste, smell, balance, pleasure, pain, etc. In other words, your brain completely connects to your in-game body, and your experience of the game is completely immersive.
With Vertebrane, you actually live inside the game. The game world is no different from the real world as far as your brain is concerned.
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© Copyright 2005 by Marshall Brain. All rights reserved.