It could help make their lives a lot better, even if it can't cure them. In some cases, the brain can be functioning ok but the signals just can't get through to their destination. The implants could take the signals to where they are going and hence bring back movements and restore functions. Some people have had brain implants that allow them to control the cursor on a screen by connecting the thought about moving the cursor to the movement of the hand. Improvements on this could allow people to drive cars, make coffee and call people on their mobile phones; things they might not have been able to do otherwise. So in answer to the question, I think there are enormous possibilities but there are not enough people doing research in this area.

Bionic is probably biological and electronic put together. As for incorporating them into the body, we already have things like pacemakers for the heart and cochlea implants. The materials used are pretty inert, so the body usually just encapsulates them, which is a good thing because it helps protect the implant.

Thank you for your support. I'm sure there are lots of people who would like to have implants so they can understand different things and have different experiences.

I'm going to agree with your friend. If you hit your head on a wall, the first thing you'd do would be to rub it. In 1965, Patrick Wall and Ronald Melzack came up with the Gate Theory of Pain. It said that if you gently rub an area of skin, that kind of stimulus can 'gate' or stop the flow of pain up the spinal cord. That's why when you hit something your first instinct is to rub it. Apart from smelling really bad, what these treatments like deep heat get you to do is to rub the affected area. This might be why rubbing in aftershave might work. Some people have implants that control pain. (Kevin) Yes they do. Some people in continual pain, such with bad cases of arthritis, have the possibility of counteracting the pain with an implant that short-circuits the pain going up the spinal cord.

I think it could be possible within the next decade as there are a few experiments going on already with brain-computer interfaces. It is exciting to look at whether we will be able to experience memories of things we never experienced. Stimulating memories we have had by blasting in electronic signals could be very useful. It would be like psychiatry from the inside. I find the possibility of having memories you never had is very exciting.

A cochlea implant is connected directly onto and into the nerve fibres, whereas a hearing aid is on the outside. A cochlea implant replaces the part of the ear that's missing.