Brain Computer Interface

1. Brain Computer Interface Presenter : Jaideo Chaudhari CS575:Human Issues in Computing Instructor: Dr. B. Rao

2. BCI Outline • BCI Concept: rebuilding instead of repairing • BCI overview: actions from thoughts • BCI Story: from fiction to reality • BCI apps: Silent Talk

3. BCI Concept: • direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device. • Often aimed at assisting, augmenting or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions.

4. BCI motivation: • In USA, more than 200,000 patients live with the motor sequelae (consequences) of serious injury. There are two ways to help them restore some motor function: • Repair the damaged nerve axons • Build neuroprosthetic device

5. BCI Principle: (a) In healthy subjects, primary motor area sends movement commands to muscles via spinal cord. (b) But in paralyzed people this pathway is interrupted. (c) A Computer based decoder is used, which translates this activity into commands for muscle control.

6. BCI versus neuroprosthetics: • Neuroprosthetics: • uses artificial devices to replace the function of impaired nervous systems or sensory organs. • connect the nervous system to a device • E.g. cochlear implants, retinal implants. • BCI: • connect the brain (or central nervous system) with a computer system. • E.g. EEG,

7. Working of BCI: • Every time we think, move, feel or remember something, our neurons are at work. That work is carried out by small electric signals that zip from neuron to neuron as fast as 250 mph • some of the electric signal escapes, which can be detected, interpret and use them to direct a device of some kind.

8. BCI Input and Output: f

9. Monkey thinks, Robot does! • Experiments with monkey operating a robotic arm with its mind at the Pittsburgh University Medical Center • http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/222-the-worlds-first-commercial-brain-computer-interface-

10. Ratbot! • Reverse BCI

11. BCI System:

12. BCI System: Non-Invasive BCI • Non-Invasive BCIs: • easy to wear • produce poor signal resolution because the skull dampens signals • Signals recorded in this way have been used to power muscle implants and restore partial movement • E.g. EEG. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0cz-q1g6go&feature=player_embedded

13. BCI System: Partially-Invasive BCI • Electrocorticography (ECoG) is a very promising intermediate BCI modality. • higher spatial resolution, • better signal-to-noise ratio, • wider frequency range • first trialed on humans in 2004 on a teenage boy suffering from epilepsy to play Space Invaders. • http://www.braingate2.org/systemOverview.html

14. BCI System: Invasive BCI • Dobelle implant "had permitted him to see rough images of large objects • BCI containing 68 electrodes was implanted onto Jen’s brain and succeeded in producing phosphenes • Initially, allowed Jen to see shades of grey in a limited field of vision at a low frame-rate. • able to use his imperfectly restored vision to drive slowly • Cost indication: $125,000

15. Human BCI Research: • sighted person: image resolution of some 32 by 32 pixels • Image resolution of the brain implant: In 2002 resolution of 144 pixels In 2003, 250 pixels i.e. 15 by 16 pixel matrix Now its around 625 pixels.

16. Cell-culture BCIs: • Aim of the experiment: • to study how brain cells function as a network and to learn more about one of the most complex devices in the known universe: the human brain. • to find out exactly how the neurons do what they do and extract those rules and apply them in software or hardware for novel types of computing • By watching the brain cells interact, scientists hope to understand what causes neural disorders, such as epilepsy. The research may also help the researchers in their quest to build "living" computers that combine neural and silicon systems. • Computers lack the flexibility and adaptability of the human brain and perform poorly at pattern recognition tasks.

17. Cell-culture BCIs: • Experiment at Univ. of Florida • 25,000 neurons taken from the brain of a rat that are connected to a computer via 60 electrodes. • rapidly began to reconnect themselves to form a living neural network. • To put the experimental brain to the test, it is connected to a jet flight simulator via the electrode grid and a desktop computer. • If you take these cells out of the cortex and you put them into one of these dishes, you remove all of the inputs—sensory systems like vision or hearing—that they would normally have. The only thing that's going on is the spontaneous activity of reconnecting.

18. Cell-culture BCIs: • Experiment at Univ. of Florida • neurons begin to receive information from the computer about flight conditions • The neurons analyze data from the computer, like whether the plane is flying level or is tilted to one side • Information is sent back and forth creating a feedback system

19. Military applications: • Pentagon’s mad-science division Darpa to start program named Silent Talk – synthetic telepathy. Budget is $4 million. • nerve signals are used as the mechanism for information transfer • two major groups - passive and active

20. Simulated reality: • In the futuristic vision of movies like The Matrix and Avatar, humans dive into a virtual world by connecting their brains directly to a computer…… • Simulation hypothesis – are we living in a simulated reality?

21. Simulated reality: • In the futuristic vision of movies like The Matrix and Avatar, humans dive into a virtual world by connecting their brains directly to a computer…… • Simulation hypothesis – are we living in a simulated reality? • It is possible that an advanced civilization could create a computer simulation which contains individuals with AI. • Such a civilization would likely run many, billions for example, of these simulations (just for fun, for research or any other permutation of possible reasons.) • A simulated individual inside the simulation wouldn’t necessarily know that it is inside a simulation — it is just going about its daily business in what it considers to be the "real world."

22. Simulated reality: • Then the ultimate question is — if one accepts that the above premises are at least possible— which of the following is more likely? • We are the one civilization which develops AI simulations and happens not to be in one itself? • We are one of the many (billions) of simulations that has run? (Remember point 3!)

23. Commercialization and companies: • Ciberkinetics • Honda • Neural Signals • Starlab • NASA

24. BCI Challenges: • The brain is incredibly complex. • There are chemical processes involved as well. • The signal is weak and prone to interference i.e. reading brain signals is like listening to a bad phone connection. There's lots of static. • The equipment is less than portable.

25. BCI video • In this short talk, Dr. Shenoy describes how his team of Stanford researchers has built a system that achieves typing at 15 words-per-minute, just by "thinking about it". • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7lmJe_EXEU&feature=related