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posted by mrpg on Saturday November 24 2018, @08:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-age-of-marvels dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Brain-computer interface enables people with paralysis to control tablet devices

In a study published November 21 in PLOS ONE, three clinical trial participants with tetraplegia, each of whom was using the investigational BrainGate BCI that records neural activity directly from a small sensor placed in the motor cortex, were able to navigate through commonly used tablet programs, including email, chat, music-streaming and video-sharing apps. The participants messaged with family, friends, members of the research team and their fellow participants. They surfed the web, checked the weather and shopped online. One participant, a musician, played a snippet of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" on a digital piano interface.

"For years, the BrainGate collaboration has been working to develop the neuroscience and neuroengineering know-how to enable people who have lost motor abilities to control external devices just by thinking about the movement of their own arm or hand," said Dr. Jaimie Henderson, a senior author of the paper and a Stanford University neurosurgeon. "In this study, we've harnessed that know-how to restore people's ability to control the exact same everyday technologies they were using before the onset of their illnesses. It was wonderful to see the participants express themselves or just find a song they want to hear."


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 24 2018, @10:17AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday November 24 2018, @10:17AM (#765849) Homepage Journal

    I'll pass TFA on to a quadriplegic friend.

    I got certified in a very special class whose classroom lectures took place at a recreational facility for physically disabled people in Santa Clara. Our first dives were in that facilities quite pleasantly body temperature swimming pool.

    Both in the pool and when we trained in the ocean, two able-bodied divers would suit up a paraplegic our a quadriplegic diver then pull them along underwater.

    One such quadriplegic person, Foster Andersen [sharedadventures.org], later appeared on the cover of a surfing magazine riding a surfboard.

    Foster went on to write a book called My Second Life [amazon.com]. His "First Life" ended when he had a motorcycle accident at the age of seventeen. He sold a lot of copies but it's out of print now. I expect you could still buy it directly from him.

    He later started a school for the disabled called Shared Adventures [sharedadventures.org], in Santa Cruz, California. Among its lessons is Rock Climbing, in which a couple able-bodied climbers haul the disabled student up steep cliffs. I'll ask him how high the tallest cliff is.

    Foster is a great guy and wonderful friend to me. Nothing gets him down.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:16PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @01:16PM (#765866)

    be used to control a laptop or even maybe even a desktop computer?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:25PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 24 2018, @02:25PM (#765878) Journal

      Seems a no-brainer. If they can help these people, they are learning how other people can be "wired", for lack of a better word. It would be cool if an implant in your wrist would substitute for a mouse, or trackball. They've already wired a neural to electrical impulse directly to the brain. It's probably comparatively simple to go further out on the nerves, and wire something to the nerves there, eliminating the need for getting inside the skull.

      I've read a couple articles about prosthetics - I may even have found one here at SN. The Duck gives me a bunch of hits - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=neural+control+of+prosthetics&atb=v124-1&ia=web [duckduckgo.com]

      Sandia labs may be the most authoritive of those hits - https://www.sandia.gov/research/robotics/cybernetics/prosthetics.html [sandia.gov]

      Let me see if I can find some real life solutions -

      Not ready for the street yet, but these look close enough to hope - https://phys.org/news/2018-11-fingertip-sensors-veterans-prosthetics.html [phys.org]

      This one has a real human guinea pig already implanted with neural feedback from a prosthetic - https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-surgical-technique-sensation-prosthetic-limb.html [medicalxpress.com]

      I'm not finding any good human interest angle stories. Hmmmm - NY daily news offers a video of a man exercising direct neural control over his arm, but the video seems to be missing.

      Youtube - Johns Hopkins - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_brnKz_2tI [youtube.com] Truly kickass!

      My search terms at youtube offers a lot of similar links. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=control+prostheic+with+the+mind [youtube.com]

      --
      “I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:29PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @04:29PM (#765911)

      Could this same technology someday be used to control a laptop or even maybe even a desktop computer?

      In principle, they're simply manipulating a mouse pointer so it's just a question of plugging in the gadget to the PC's USB port: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Qw3EDBPhg [youtube.com]

      In practice, there seem to be too much noise for them to accurately manipulate a mouse for most desktop software to work right.

      Things should get better in the future. But right now with this tech, nope.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @07:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @07:52PM (#765960)

        Look mommy no hands! http://eviacam.crea-si.com/ [crea-si.com] (GPL)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @07:56PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @07:56PM (#765961)

    If you can control a computer with a chip in your brain, you can also control the brain with a computer.

    Remember the cosy days of yore when first malware meant an ambulance driving around your screen or then a bit later your bank account getting emptied? When there was only hardware and software while wetware remained unplugged?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 24 2018, @08:11PM

      by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Saturday November 24 2018, @08:11PM (#765964) Journal

      Remember the cosy days of yore when first malware meant an ambulance driving around your screen or then a bit later your bank account getting emptied? When there was only hardware and software while wetware remained unplugged?

      Those memories will be deleted in 3, 2, 1...

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
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