Brain Computer Interface

1. Brain Computer Interface Presenter : Jaideo Chaudhari

2. BCI Concept: rebuilding instead of repairing • BCI Story: from fiction to reality • BCI overview: actions from thoughts • BCI applications:

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 Concept: (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! • http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/222-the-worlds-first-commercial-brain-computer-interface-

10. Ratbot! • Rat experiment in 1980’s

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) measures the electrical activity • From beneath the skull. • implanted inside the skull but rest outside the brain rather than within the grey matter • first trialed on humans on 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: • program named Silent Talk – synthetic telepathy • 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 Matrixand 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. Commercialization and companies: • Ciberkinetics • Honda • Neural Signals • Starlab

22. BCI video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7lmJe_EXEU&feature=related