Category: brain-computer interfaces

In a significant scientific achievement, researchers at Nankai University in China claim to have successfully designed a brain implant that allows a monkey to control a robotic arm using only its thoughts. This breakthrough, announced on May 5, is hailed as a promising development that could greatly enhance the quality of life for individuals with disabilities.

The brain-computer interface utilized in the experiment transforms electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from the monkey’s brain into control instructions, enabling it to maneuver the robotic arm and obtain food rewards. It is important to note that the research has not yet undergone peer review, and the claims made by the scientists have not been independently verified. The information regarding the experiment is currently available solely through a statement on the university’s website.

Led by Professor Duan Feng and conducted in collaboration with the General Hospital of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (301 Hospital) and Shanghai Xinwei Medical Technology Co., Ltd, the trial represents a continuation of previous research involving an interventional brain-computer interface experiment on sheep. The statement highlights the successful recognition of EEG signals and other core technologies critical to the experiment’s execution.

Continue reading… “Chinese Scientists Develop Brain Implant Enabling Monkey to Control Robotic Arm with Mind”

A HUGE BANDWIDTH INCREASE.

BY VICTOR TANGERMANN

A team of Stanford scientists claims to have tested a new brain-computer interface (BCI) that can decode speech at up to 62 words per minute, improving the previous record by 3.4 times.

That’d be a massive step towards real-time speech conversion at the pace of natural human conversation.

Max Hodak, who founded BCI company Neuralink alongside Elon Musk, but wasn’t involved in the study, called the research “a meaningful step change in the utility of implanted BCIs” in an email to Futurism.

As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, the team of Stanford scientists found that they only needed to analyze brain activity in a relatively small region of the cortex to convert them into coherent speech using a machine learning algorithm.

The goal was to give those who can no longer speak due to ALS or stroke their voice back. While keyboard-based solutions have allowed those with paralysis to communicate again to a certain degree, a brain-based speech interface could speed up the decoding significantly.

“Here, we demonstrated a speech BCI that can decode unconstrained sentences from a large vocabulary at a speed of 62 words per minute, the first time that a BCI has far exceeded the communication rates that alternative technologies can provide for people with paralysis, e.g. eye tracking,” the researchers write.

Continue reading… “SCIENTISTS SAY NEW BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE LETS USERS TRANSMIT 62 WORDS PER MINUTE”

By Monit Khanna

Highlights

The device is called Synchron Switch and it converts the thoughts of people suffering from paralysis into action. It works with the help of a bunch of sensors dubbed Strentrode that is inserted into the top of the brain via a blood vessel and is controlled wirelessly with the help of a Synchron Switch that’s at the patient’s chest

Synchron, a New York-based company is working on a brain-computer interface (BCI) technology that allows patients to control iPhones and iPads hands-free, by simply using their minds, reveals a report by Semafor.

Continue reading… “Brain Sensor Implant Helps Paralysed Individuals Control An iPad Using Their Minds”

A team of scientists has created new technology that could allow amputees to control prosthetics by using the power of their minds

By Forrest McFarland

AMPUTEES could use the power of their minds to control new AI robotic arms, research shows.

A team of scientists has created prosthetic technology that enables people to control robot arms by using their brain impulses.

The University of Minnesota team of researchers came together to find a more intuitive option for amputees, a new study shows.

“With prosthetic systems, when amputees want to move a finger, they don’t actually think about moving a finger,” research scientist Jules Anh Tuan Nguyen said.

“They’re trying to activate the muscles in their arms since that’s what the system reads.”

Current technology forces amputees to use the remaining muscles in their arms to move their prosthetics.

Continue reading… “New AI limbs let amputees control robotic arms with just the power of their mind”

For centuries prosthetics have helped amputees, but until now those prosthetics, while helpful, have not given the same function as what was lost. However, a group of researchers are working on changing that.

A new piece of technology is being developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities that will make clumsy prosthetics a thing of the past.

The new device is said to be less invasive, more accurate, and allows amputees to move a robotic prosthetic with their arm using brain signals.

Researchers published their findings in a paper in the Journal of Neural Engineering. Jules Anh Tuan Nguyen, a postdoctoral researcher and University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumnus, shared that there is nothing else like this tech.

“It’s a lot more intuitive than any commercial system out there,” Nguyen said in a press release. “With other commercial prosthetic systems, when amputees want to move a finger, they don’t actually think about moving a finger.”

The tech, developed at the University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, is a small implantable device that attaches to the peripheral nerve in a person’s arm.

Continue reading… “Researchers create a prosthetic arm that can be moved with an amputee’s mind”

BY U. OREGON

Researchers have grown rodent retinal neurons on a fractal-patterned electrode, one that mimics the repeating branching pattern in which neurons naturally grow.

It’s a step closer to making a bio-inspired bionic eye, a longstanding goal for University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor.

Taylor hopes the tiny electrodes could someday be implanted into the eye to restore sight in people with macular degeneration or other vision disorders.

The new work provides experimental evidence supporting a hunch his team has been pursuing for years, that neurons, which themselves are fractals, will connect better to a fractal-patterned electrode than they do to more traditionally shaped electrodes, allowing better signal transmission between the implant and the brain.

Continue reading… “FRACTAL NEURON GROWTH COULD LEAD TO BIONIC EYES”

“I MYSELF COULD NOT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE.”

A 34-year-old paralyzed man who had even lost the ability to move his eyes due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is able to communicate again through a brain implant.

Rather than the system tracking his eyes as with current-generation tech, The New York Times reports, the implant was able to pick up on the man imagining moving his eyes. It’s a notable neuroscience achievement that could give others in a similar locked-in state a way to express themselves again — though it’s not a perfect solution, and will require additional work before it can help others.

The results of the 2020 experiment conducted by Ujwal Chaudhary, a since retired biomedical engineer then at the University of Tübingen, Germany and co-author of a study about the project published in the journal Nature Communications this week, came as a shock.

“I myself could not believe that this is possible,” Chaudhary told the NYT.

Continue reading… “SCIENTISTS SAY BRAIN IMPLANT LET COMPLETELY PARALYZED MAN COMMUNICATE AGAIN”

Experimental paradigm. Subjects were instructed to perform reach-and-grasp movements to designate the locations of the target in three-dimensional space. (a) Subjects A and B were provided the visual cue as a real tennis ball at one of four pseudo-randomized locations. (b) Subjects A and B were provided the visual cue as a virtual reality clip showing a sequence of five stages of a reach-and-grasp movement. Credit: The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

by  The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Researchers have developed a mind-reading system for decoding neural signals from the brain during arm movement. The method, described in the journal Applied Soft Computing, can be used by a person to control a robotic arm through a brain-machine interface (BMI).

A BMI is a device that translates nerve signals into commands to control a machine, such as a computer or a robotic limb. There are two main techniques for monitoring neural signals in BMIs: electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocorticography (ECoG).

The EEG exhibits signals from electrodes on the surface of the scalp and is widely employed because it is non-invasive, relatively cheap, safe and easy to use. However, the EEG has low spatial resolution and detects irrelevant neural signals, which makes it difficult to interpret the intentions of individuals from the EEG.

On the other hand, the ECoG is an invasive method that involves placing electrodes directly on the surface of the cerebral cortex below the scalp. Compared with the EEG, the ECoG can monitor neural signals with much higher spatial resolution and less background noise. However, this technique has several drawbacks.

“The ECoG is primarily used to find potential sources of epileptic seizures, meaning the electrodes are placed in different locations for different patients and may not be in the optimal regions of the brain for detecting sensory and movement signals,” explained Professor Jaeseung Jeong, a brain scientist at KAIST. “This inconsistency makes it difficult to decode brain signals to predict movements.”

Continue reading… “Decoding brain signals to control a robotic arm”

By Luke Dormehl

In a room at the United Kingdom’s University of Plymouth, a Ph.D. student is sitting at a computer, eyes closed as if he’s meditating. On his head is what looks like a black swimming cap, but is actually an electroencephalogram (EEG) reader that’s sensing the electrical activity passing over his scalp. In front of him, on the monitor, there’s an image of a wireframe globe with two points marked “1” and “0.” In the center of the globe, like a clock with a single hand, is an arrow that oscillates between the two points. As the student changes his expression from one of relaxation to one of wide-eyed agitation, the arrow twitches and moves. Every several seconds, he enters a new digit.

• More than the sum of its parts or a toaster-fridge?
• Use cases galore
• The quantum metaverse?
• Step one in a long journey

It might not look like much (and right now, it’s still very early days for this work), but it’s nonetheless fascinating stuff. As the student changes his brain patterns from calm to energized and back again, he produces alpha and beta waves that are then used to manipulate simulated qubits – the elemental unit in quantum computing, reflecting the math of quantum physics – using nothing more than the power of thought.

“If you train yourself to produce these two kinds of waves, then you can send some sort of Morse code to the computer,” professor Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth told Digital Trends. “The problem is that it takes eight seconds to generate one command at the moment because the EEG is very slow. We need a lot of processing to analyze it. And this analysis is not so accurate, so we need to keep checking many times to see if the code really is what the person wants to produce.”

Welcome to the somewhat shaky, tentative steps of the world of quantum programming by way of brain-computer interface. According to its creators, it’s the start of construction of what the team calls the Quantum Brain Network (abbreviated to QBraiN). And it’s got the potential to do a bunch of things that are worth getting excited about.

Continue reading… “Inside the U.K. lab that connects brains to quantum computers”

In the “first direct-thought tweet,” the patient said “Hello World” 

By Leigh Mcmanus

In what the company behind the technology is calling the “first direct-thought tweet,” the patient said “Hello World,” using the implantable brain computer interface, or microchip.

A paralysed man has become the first person to tweet a message to the world using only direct thought. 

The feat was pulled off by Philip O’Keefe – a motor neurone disease patient – using a microchip implant that picks up his brain signals.

It’s been described as the “first direct-thought tweet” after Mr O’Keefe said said “Hello World” using the brain implant.

Synchron, a brain computer interface company, announced a Twitter takeover by Philip O’Keefe on December 23rd. 

He is one of the patients implanted with computer company Synchron’s Stentrode brain computer interface, or in other words, a microchip in his body that analyses his brain signals and helps carry out commands.

Mr O’Keefe is the first person to successfully message the world on social media directly through thought, Synchron said.

Continue reading… “Paralysed man sends tweet using only his mind after microchip installed in brain”