The Memory Hacker

DINING WITH DOCTORS

Although the ethical implications of Berger´s work are significant, there is no shortage of people willing to fund it. The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health contribute to the annual $3-million research budget for Berger´s project. So do the Pentagon´s Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon´s experimental-technologies arm. Brain-machine interface research holds obvious potential for tomorrow´s soldiers: Think of mini chips attached to a combat grunt that could provide infrared night vision, for instance.

Meanwhile Berger´s research, once the stuff of fantasy, is already finding its way into the mainstream. In 2003 Berger formed Safety Dynamics, a company in Tuscon, Arizona, that applied his neural-modeling techniques to develop an acoustic-recognition system called the Sentri. It can distinguish the noise of a gunshot from, for example, the sound of a misfiring car cylinder-a handy way for short-staffed police forces to monitor crime-plagued neighborhoods. Police departments in Chicago and in Tijuana, Mexico, now employ the device, and authorities in Phoenix, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City have expressed interest in it.

Yet we are still years away, possibly decades, from getting ourselves fitted for a personal memory upgrade. But, Granger says, â€it´s time to take the idea seriously.â€

Berger drops me off at the USC campus. He´s headed to another conference in the morning, this one in Paris. Although it´s satisfying to be in demand, Berger says he misses the days of tinkering in the lab. â€Sometimes I´d like to just go back to pure research,†he admits. â€But it´s nice to see it start to pay off.â€

I ask Berger about his plans for the evening. He´s headed to his hilltop home on the Palos Verdes peninsula overlooking the Pacific. â€I promised my daughter, Kimberly, and my wife that I´d be home early for once,†he says, and I nod, imagining talk of homework and PTA meetings. But I´m wrong. Berger´s wife, Roberta Brinton, is a leading USC researcher on estrogen-replacement therapies in Alzheimer´s patients and has worked as part of Berger´s team to culture living brain cells onto silicon chips. Suddenly the man´s energy and determination snap into focus for me: He unwinds from being a jet-setting brain scientist by going home-and talking about the brain. â€We discuss prosthetics over dinner,†he acknowledges with a shrug, and turns to his car.