BOSTON (AP) – For years, science visionaries have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, the first human trials of an early version of one such technology are set to begin.

Cyberkinetics of Foxboro has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be implanted beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. If successful, the chips could allow patients to send computer commands, essentially by thinking about them.

It’s a small, early step in a mission to improve the quality of life for victims of strokes and debilitating diseases like cerebral palsy or Lou Gehrig’s. Many victims of such ailments can now survive for long periods thanks to life support, but their quality of life is poor.

“A computer is a gateway to everything else these patients would like to do, including motivating your own muscles through electrical stimulation,” said Cyberkinetics Chief Executive Tim Surgenor. “This is a step in the process.”

The company isn’t the only group of researchers active in the field.

But it appears the company will be the first to begin a long-term, human trial with a sophisticated device placed inside a patient’s brain. It hopes to bring a product to market in three to five years.

Cyberkinetics founder Dr. John Donoghue, a Brown University neuroscientist, attracted attention with research on monkeys that was published in 2002 in the journal Nature.

Three rhesus monkeys were given the implants, which were first used to record signals from their motor cortex – an area of the brain that controls movement – as they manipulated a joystick with their hands. Then those signals were used to develop a program that enabled one of the monkeys to continue moving a computer cursor with its brain.

The idea is not to stimulate the brain, but rather to monitor activity from the brain’s neurons and synapses, trying to discern when the brain is signaling a desire to make a particular physical movement.

“We’re going to say to a paralyzed patient, imagine moving your hand six inches to the right,”‘ Surgenor said. Then, he said, researchers will try to identify the brain activity associated with that desire.

Someday, that capacity could feed into related devices that help patients act on that desire, like a robotic arm.

It’s misleading to say such technologies “read minds,” said Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw, of the New York State Department of Health, who is conducting similar research. Instead, they train minds to recognize a new pattern of cause and effect, and adapt.

“What happens is you provide the brain with the opportunity to develop a new skill,” he said.

Moving the experiment from monkeys to humans is a challenge. Cyberkinetics’ “Brain Gate” contains tiny spikes that will extend down about one millimeter into the brain after being implanted beneath the skull, monitoring the activity from a small group of neurons.

The signals will be monitored through wires emerging from the skull, which presents some danger of infection. The company is working on a wireless version.

Wolpaw said it isn’t clear that it’s necessary to implant such devices inside the brain; other technologies that monitor activity from outside the skull may prove as effective. But, he said, the idea of brain implants seems to attract more attention.

“The idea that you can get control by putting things into the brain appears to have an inherent fascination,” he said.

AP-ES-04-13-04 1617EDT