In the near future, there will be so many advances on brain technology that we could one day create a brain chip to help the mentally ill. DARPA is announcing a project to do that, and their $70 million project's goal is "to develop and apply therapies that incorporate near real-time recording, analysis and stimulation in next-generation devices inspired by current Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)."

The brain chip, in layman terms, is an implantable device that will help the military get a handle on its widespread mental health problem. It will seek to better understand how mental illnesses manifest themselves in the brain and how neuropsychiatry might provide treatment options.

The program is part of the White House's recently-announced BRAIN initiative from which DARPA received $50 million.

The technology is not new. It is being tested as a possible treatment for patients with spinal cord injuries as well as other conditions like chronic pain and severe depression. Devices use a battery-powered neurostimulator to target specific areas of the brain with wild electrical stimuli.

There's still a lot of testing to go, and Motherboard's Meghan Neal points out that doctors still don't entirely understand how the existing devices work and that they can't collect data on their efficacy.

Just what magic chip will DARPA come up with? As usual, stay tuned to more of these sci-fi-to-real-world updates. [DARPA via Motherboard]