Sitting stone still under a skull cap fitted with a couple dozen
electrodes, American scientist Peter Brunner stares at a laptop
computer. Without so much as moving a nostril hair, he suddenly
begins to compose a message -- letter by letter -- on a giant
screen overhead.
"B-O-N-J-O-U-R" he writes with the power of his mind, much to the
amazement of the largely French audience of scientists and curious
onlookers gathered at the four-day European Research and Innovation
Exhibition in Paris, which opened Thursday.
Brunner and two colleagues from the state-financed Wadsworth Center
in Albany, New York were demonstrating a "brain computer interface
(BCI)," an astounding technology which digitalizes brain signals
emitted as electrical impulses -- picked up by the electrodes -- to
convey intent.
While no spoons were bent, this was definitely mind over
matter.
Without recourse to nerves or muscles, BCI "can provide
communication and control to people who are totally paralyzed" and
unable to unable to speak or move, explains researcher Theresa
Sellers, also from Wadsworth.
Dr. Sellers estimates there are some 100 million potential users of
BCI technology worldwide, including 16 million sufferers of
cerebral palsy, a degenerative brain disease, and at least five
million victims of spinal cord injury. Another 10 million people
have been totally paralyzed by brainstem strokes, she said.
Scientists have been experimenting with ways to translate thought
directly into action for nearly two decades, but BCI has only
recently begun to move out of the laboratory and into the daily
lives of those trapped inside bodies that no longer respond to
their will.
Possible applications extend beyond the written word into physical
movement -- it is only a matter of time, Sellers says, before the
same technology is used to operate motorized wheel chairs. "We can
do already. But it is a complex problem, and for now it would be
unsafe," she says.
The frightful condition of being "locked in" came into the public
eye in the late 1990s, when French journalist and Elle Magazine
editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, after suffering a massive stroke,
painstakingly "dictated" a beautiful and moving memoir by blinking
his left eyelid.
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," published two days before he
died, became an international bestseller.
Had BCI technology been available to him, Bauby would almost
certainly have been able to write his book unassisted, and in a
fraction of the time.
The Wadsworth system, one of several that detects
electroencephalographic (EEG) activity, is based on an algorithm
that analyzes the brain waves and identifies peaks in activity that
correspond to particular mental efforts.
As Dr. Brunner concentrates on the "B" of "bonjour" in a
keyboard-like grid of letters and symbols taking up half the
screen, a computer randomly highlights lines of characters in rapid
succession.
Each time the row -- vertical or horizontal -- containing the
letter "B" is illuminated, Brunner's brain emits a slightly
stronger signal. It takes the computer about 15 seconds to figure
out what letter he is looking at. The system is doubly adaptive,
with both the software and the person using it becoming more
efficient over time.
"It may not sound very practical, but for someone who is paralyzed
it can make all the difference in the world," says Sellers.
Indeed, for at least one 48-year old neurobiologist in the United
States stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- an invariably
fatal degenerative disease that attacks nerve cells -- the
Wadsworth BCI technology has make it possible not only to
communicate but to continue working, even though he can no longer
even move his eyes.
"He writes grant proposals, sends e-mails and can use the keyboard
of a computer at home," Sellers said of the man, whom she did not
identify in order to protect his privacy.
He even wrote a message for the exhibition in Paris, which Sellers
projected onto a screen.
"To Altran," he began, referring to the French innovation
consulting firm that sponsors an annual competition for public
service innovation, won in 2005 by the head of the Wadworth Center,
Jonathan Wolpaw.
"I am a neuroscientist wHo couldn't work without BCI," the message
read, typo and all. "I am writing this with my EEG courtesy of the
Wadsworth Center Brain-Computer Interface Research Program."
source: physorg.com
