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It reads like something out of a sci-fi flick, but new technology created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently enabled a paralyzed woman to fly an F-35 fighter jet and a single-engine Cessna in a simulator using only her mind. Speaking in Washington, DC at the recent New America Foundation’s Future of War forum on February 24th, DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar revealed to the crowd that 55 year-old Jan Scheuermann, who has suffered paralysis since 2003 due to a neurodegenerative condition, was able to fly a Joint Strike Fighter simulator without the use of any joystick or handheld device.“We can now see a future where we can now free the brain from the limitations of the human body,” Prabhakar said, “and I think we can all imagine amazing good things and amazing potentially bad things on the other side of that door.”In 2012, Scheuermann volunteered to undergo surgery to have two small probes placed on the surface of her brain — the left motor cortex. Her neurosignals were then picked up, enabling Scheuermann to control a pair of left and right prosthetic arms using only her mind.
