Direct neural interface: Hopefully coming soon to a brain near you
Antarctica Starts Here. » Antarctica Starts Here. 2015-12-22
Summary:
Direct neural interface has long been a dream and fantasy of tech geeks like myself who grew up reading science fiction. Slap an electrode net on your head (or screw a cable into an implanted jack) and there you are, controlling a computer with the same ease that you'd walk down the street or bend a paperclip with your fingers. If nothing else, those of us who battle the spectre of carpal tunnel syndrome constantly know that our careers have a shelf life, and at some point we're going to be out of action more or less permanently. So we are constantly on the lookout for ways to not wind up on permanent disability because we can't work anymore.
Or maybe you just found out way more about me than you really needed to know. Let's move along, shall we?
Bits and pieces of brain/computer interface technology have been around for years: The electroencephalogram is a non-invasive sensing technology for picking up the electrical activity of the brain, and relatively inexpensive open source eegs like the OpenBCI exist for people hacking around. Microprocessors are now fast and powerful enough to crunch EEG data in realtime for very little money and the most unusual hardware can be repurposed for getting the data into your laptop. You can purchase reusable EEG electrodes
on Amazon for very little money to ensure that you get the highest quality signals (or you can make your own). TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) has been around since the mid-1990's, when only a dedicated subculture of body hackers and modification enthusiasts were winding their own electromagnets and seeing what would happen when they were placed on different areas of their skulls. But what would it take to put all of this together to transfer information from one person's brain to that of another person?
The answer is: Not much, really. A research team at the University of Washington have published the results of experments they've conducted that accomplished just that. One test subject was wired up to an EEG monitoring their cortical electrical activity; the EEG was interfaced with a computer plugged into their local area network where it transmitted the data to another computer. In another lab about a mile down the road, a second test subject with a TMS unit strapped to the back of their head that was interfaced with a second computer receiving the EEG data from the network. The TMS was positioned over the primary visual cortex. When the TMS was energized the resulting magnetic field caused phosphenes to appear in the subject's field of vision (if you want to replicate this at home, close your eyes and gently press on your eyelids; what you see are phosphenes triggered by the pressure stimulating your retinas, which send signals down your optic nerves into your visual cortices). The first test subject viewed a static image; the second test subject used some software to ask the first yes-or-no questions about the image, which was answered by thinking "Yes" or "No" very hard. The second test subject detecting a strong phosphene interpreted it as a "Yes" response. When the experiments were done, the numbers were crunched and it was found that five pairs of test subjects playing twenty games, where half were controls and half were real games showed a success rate of 72%. In a separate control group, their success rate was only 18%, which is significantly below that of the experimental group. If you've a mind to, their peer-reviewed paper is available at PLOS ONE.There are other forms of DNI research taking place right now. Possibly one of the busiest ones is mitigation for amyo
on Amazon for very little money to ensure that you get the highest quality signals (or you can make your own). TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) has been around since the mid-1990's, when only a dedicated subculture of body hackers and modification enthusiasts were winding their own electromagnets and seeing what would happen when they were placed on different areas of their skulls. But what would it take to put all of this together to transfer information from one person's brain to that of another person?
The answer is: Not much, really. A research team at the University of Washington have published the results of experments they've conducted that accomplished just that. One test subject was wired up to an EEG monitoring their cortical electrical activity; the EEG was interfaced with a computer plugged into their local area network where it transmitted the data to another computer. In another lab about a mile down the road, a second test subject with a TMS unit strapped to the back of their head that was interfaced with a second computer receiving the EEG data from the network. The TMS was positioned over the primary visual cortex. When the TMS was energized the resulting magnetic field caused phosphenes to appear in the subject's field of vision (if you want to replicate this at home, close your eyes and gently press on your eyelids; what you see are phosphenes triggered by the pressure stimulating your retinas, which send signals down your optic nerves into your visual cortices). The first test subject viewed a static image; the second test subject used some software to ask the first yes-or-no questions about the image, which was answered by thinking "Yes" or "No" very hard. The second test subject detecting a strong phosphene interpreted it as a "Yes" response. When the experiments were done, the numbers were crunched and it was found that five pairs of test subjects playing twenty games, where half were controls and half were real games showed a success rate of 72%. In a separate control group, their success rate was only 18%, which is significantly below that of the experimental group. If you've a mind to, their peer-reviewed paper is available at PLOS ONE.There are other forms of DNI research taking place right now. Possibly one of the busiest ones is mitigation for amyo