That's Using Your Head

broKenfoLd writes "In an earlier post, we looked at the future of Matrix-esque control over computers. In that article, monkeys got to play the games. Today at UW in Madison, WI, it's the humans who are playing video games just by thinking about it. While this is cool for us power gamers, it has many more impressive applications, including limb replacement."

Serious Gaming

[pseinstein]

When this is refined it can change the way games are played in general. No longer will games be about who has the best hand-eye coordination. Rather they will be about who can think the smartest and fastest. We may end up calling any form of gaming that requires movement or manipulation of physical controls old-school.

yeah... 'replacement'

[BortQ]

Screw limb replacement. I want limb addition!

Ghost in the Shell, anyone?

[f4llenang3l]

This issue brings harshly to light the ethical problems inherent in all scientific advancement. Clearly this technology can be put to excellent use to restore mobility to paraplegics, or to allow those of us who were nicknamed "Twitches" in high school to improve our success in Counterstrike: Source.

That said, this technology could also be used for less noble goals; while it says nothing about direct brain control via the implant, and indeed I feel that that would be difficult at best, perhaps even impossible, there are other questionable deeds that could be accomplished with such a device.

Certainly it will make warfare much quicker, and mass-destruction much easier; it has the capacity to lend a remote-control, push-button effect to war that was previously limited to such weaponry as ICBM's. Imagine soldiers in tanks who no longer see enemy soldiers, but just blips on a screen that they manipulate and shoot without any physical interaction! or "suicide bombers" who directly drive bomb-laden delivery trucks into buildings with their brains from over a DSL connection.

It shall be interesting to see where this technology goes.

BRAIN / COMPUTER

[akuma624]

"They also are working on developing new electrodes that emit drugs that tone down the inflammation that comes from introducing a foreign object into the brain." This statement is medically interesting in the sense that the human immunoresponse to objects it doesn't recognize - e.g. antibody / antigen reaction. Not to mention that introducing even the slightest foreign object in the subarachnoid space (the space between the skull and the brain itself) is of fatal importance. At one point we have to wonder and assume that technology will eventually make all of this possible but will we maintain our "humanity" or will we undergo some change ala Caption Picard and the Borg - ?

It's the future...

[igrigorik]

Combine the unsurpassed parallel processing capability of our brain with speed of sequential execution of an even average home pc, and who knows what can happen. This is what you read about in sci-fi, yet it's already on our door steps. (Mind you it's in infant stage, but nonetheless.) Next thing you know faculties of Math/Science/etc. will cease to exist and instead the parents will pick if they want the latest copy of Mathematica or Maple installed in their childs brain ;)

Imagine wetware motion capture!

[QuantumG]

Screw cameras and blue screens, jut plug your brain into the PC and control the character directly. Seriously if this was even remotely possible the very first thing I'd do is make an architecture for broadcasting animations to other players in a MMORPG. First step on the way to the matrix. Of course, this isn't possible and it's larly stupid to even bother thinking about it.

Research on "going the other way"?

[suso]

Does anyone know if any group is doing research on using input devices for your brain from a computer? In other words, a way of sending information back into your brain so that you could know it, hear it, visually see it or feel it?

Re:Serious Gaming

[Ayaress]

It'd be pretty interesting. As most gamer's are probably familiar, when you're doing really good at a game, you sorta enter a "zone," where the game just sorta plays itself (no Star Trek reference intended). Things just start happening a bit faster than you can consciously handle, but you still pull it off. When you've either won or lost, it can be hard to remember exactly what happened along the way. This kind of game control would really push that to its limit.

Children of Zion Can't Jack In

[QuantumG]

The Matrix is cool but here's a the rub. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and all the rest were born in the matrix. They learnt to control their virtual bodies as they grew up. Even if the machines got it into their silicon minds to hook up one of the children of Zion it would take years for him to learn how to control his virtual body, if he ever did. We are children of Zion, and should we ever get enough electrodes implanted into our brains it will also take us years to learn how to control our virtual bodies.

Re:Mind Melds, Torture, and China

[Anonymous Coward]

I could imagine a scenario where a Tibetan nun is arrested by the Chinese. She knows the whereabouts of the new Dalai Lama, and the Chinese hook her up to the mind of a Chinese colonel. The colonel then mentally rapes and tortures her until she yields the requested information.

The colonel can already rape and torture her as he sees fit using present day technology. Why is this technology any more scary than that? Oh right, it's unfamiliar and therefore automatically bad and scary.

Re:Significant Development?

[wwahammy]

How isn't that a significant development? A quadraplegic goes from being completely dependent on others to being able to accomplish things on his own and in addition some things he could only dream of (video games). That's pretty life changing I think.

Re:Serious Gaming

[whovian]

when you're doing really good at a game, you sorta enter a "zone," where the game just sorta plays itself (no Star Trek reference intended). Things just start happening a bit faster than you can consciously handle, but you still pull it off. When you've either won or lost, it can be hard to remember exactly what happened along the way. /rings buzzer

What is "instinct", Alex?

I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I have been there and it's fun, yet kind of scary when you actually cognate about it afterwards.

Limiters, Suppressors

[LionKimbro]

Several people are worried that this technology would be horrible. Many people are citing Forbidden Planet. [wikipedia.org]
But, those worries are mis-placed. Forbidden Planet isn't going to happen.
It goes like this: We're going to develop suppressors technology.

Think about a gun for the moment: A gun has a safety. You have to undo the safety, before the gun will fire.

We all have many systems in our lives that prevent us from messing up. Credit card limits, speech and action suppressors in our brains, yadda yadda yadda.

As we develop machines that respond to thought, we will also develop machines that suppress our newfound "actions." We will limit actions that are particularly dangerous. We will limit actions that come from careless thoughts.
There may be things where: You have to solve a small puzzle, before the action will carry out. We may have things where: If you aren't being attentive, then the action won't execute.

5.1 Surround Senses

[KrackHouse]

This got me thinking, once you're dealing with the brain directly and not hearing, smell, touch, tase, vision, you could add senses in the same way modders currently add levels or features to games.

I think the best application would be the ability to wire your brain directly into another person's to express ideas without waiting for our mouths to do the work. There is a gob of tissue that connects the left and right sides of the brain that when cut leads to all sorts of weird problems.

If we can borrow the right side of someones brain for an art school assignment then wouldn't humanity start to look a lot like open source software? We own our brains now, they're proprietary. What happens when we connect a bunch together? What happens to "self"? Are we the final Beowulf joke?

Re:Telepathy

[Thing 1]

Seriously though, an implant that could do this would make telepathy somewhat of a reality. How cool is that?

Very. Let me entertain you for a moment (and this is somewhat OT but not too far juice).

Telepathy is possible. I read two (unrelated) articles about 4 years ago that proved it to me. The first said the human brain works not only on mechanical, chemical, biological, and electrical principles, but also on quantum principles, so if we're going to fully understand the human brain, we need to understand quantum mechanics.

The second article (about 3 weeks later) talked about researchers isolating one quantum effect in the lab: entanglement. The article talked about them "entangling" two electrons through some process, and then when separated up to 10 km (they hadn't tested greater distances so it doesn't necessarily stop at 10 km), they could change the spin on one electron and the other would immediately change its spin as well.

It was determined that this happened instantly, i.e., faster than the speed of light. This is communication at a distance. (The FTL part is really just icing...)

These two articles proved to me that telepathy is not only possible, but with us. It's likely very recent on the evolutionary timescale, since we don't have complete control over it.

Then I started thinking anecdotally: I have heard many times of a mother knowing when a child is in danger. However, I have never heard about a father who knew. This makes sense given the above: the mother and child had 9 months of intimate contact during which they could have exchanged entangled atoms.

Then I thought further: twins tend to be even more uncannily linked than any mother and child. This makes sense too, since they spend 9 months right next to each other, whereas the child's and mother's brains are separated by 2-3 feet.

The part I love about this is that there are many, many more quantum effects that we haven't experimented with yet. Our bodies likely already have: life tends to take advantage of any phenomena available that can help it survive and prosper.

It should not matter

[Nomihn0]

As the electrodes are not targeting any particular region, as is evidenced by the subject's description of "scrinching up" and "thinking about screaming" as methods of controlling the paddle, there is no reason why they should be buried in the brain rather than adhered to the surface. Don't hold me to this as I am not qualified to make these assumptions, but I do not believe that this is particularly significant or new achievement (except that it is an extension of the previous one without fault). Until they create extremely sensitive electrodes that attach to the scalp (very, very unlikely given skin movement and interference), this still seems like quite stretch for regular patients - and an extreme one for the rest.

Maybe they should try other, less direct, interfaces - like the tongue [208.164.121.55] ("Activation of visual cortex by electrotactile stimulation of the tongue in early-blind subjects").

Man and Machine: Man to machine?

[hermank]

interesting as someone through that we would need to class, as tones of electronic doc would feed into your brain.

how about making backup of your life into several TB harddisk?

or how about programming a ultra fast computer with application which simulate responses the same way as you?

or, put it further, will there be a day that we can backup our mind and soul and reboot yourself in truely inorganic form?

By that day, will it be possible to be 'teleported' to different planet, simply sending you 'life and soul.zip' to a different clone machine via planetary communication link?

And, by that day, what is the definition of human and machine?

btw, will this be a movie plot of an upcomming blockbuster?

No, electrodes are really doubtful

[Nomihn0]

That's the point - if. Even though subjects would still have to think about everything from puppies to chain guns just to get the paddle to move, the results might be far less consistent for two reasons:

Electrodes on the scalp are, by definition, less precise than those implanted into or on top of the brain. When on the scalp, the signal received is from a larger area. Due to this, the thought processes involved might be too general - individual actions and thoughts might step on eachothers toes, so to speak. Although some devices utilize electrodes on the scalp as biofeedback sensors, I doubt it could be so targeted as to move a prosthetic arm. Remember, and this is a BIG overvsimplication, it would take more radical differences in thought to achieve specific movements, as anything less might result in an unintended combination of different inputs

The other concern is interference. I know that I once had difficulty with a remotely operated vehicle because of a play production in the neighboring room (think stagelights). I don't want to imagine what a similar situation would do to somebody with a prosthetic limb (think Dr. Strangelove).

I'm getting conflicting facts

[Nomihn0]

The BrainGate device is the one mentioned in the conference in a past article [gizmo.com.au].

"The development of the BrainGate program is the culmination of 10 years of research in my academic laboratory at Brown University. . ."

About the BrainGate device

The BrainGate Neural Interface Device is a proprietary brain-computer interface that consists of an internal neural signal sensor and external processors that convert neural signals into an output signal under the users own control. The sensor consists of a tiny chip smaller than a baby aspirin, with one hundred electrode sensors each thinner than a hair that detect brain cell electrical activity.

The BrainGate technology platform was designed to take advantage of the fact that many patients with motor impairment have an intact brain that can produce movement commands. This may allow the BrainGate system to create an output signal directly from the brain, bypassing the route through the nerves to the muscles that cannot be used in paralysed people.

The chip is implanted on the surface of the brain in the motor cortex area that controls movement. In the pilot version of the device, a cable connects the sensor to an external signal processor in a cart that contains computers. The computers translate brain activity and create the communication output using custom decoding software. Importantly, the entire BrainGate system was specifically designed for clinical use in humans and thus, its manufacture, assembly and testing are intended to meet human safety requirements. Five quadriplegics patients in all are enrolled in the pilot study, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Here, it clearly states that the electrodes are on the surface of the brain. Therefore, the use of surface electrodes in this new article (about the WU, experiment this time) is not new. So, where's the development?

Dead On

[Shihar]

I think you are dead on about the productivity boost this could have. The simple invention of e-mail caused an industrial boom. Imagine combining a non-invasive cap and a little wireless networking action. Even if they could only get output from your head, the productivity boost would be massive if you could get fine enough control to write. Simply blanket a company with a wireless network, give everyone a thinking cap, and sit back and watch productivity soar.

Walk up to a screen which needs some fields filled in, like an invoice, and think the input in. While you are talking with someone, be jotting down notes without twitching a muscle. Think about the data or instructions you need and have it pop up on your PDA. When you need to bang out a report, type the words as fast as you can think them.

I personally think it would cause a revolution in technology and productivity. Imagine the environment responding to people's thoughts instead of something kludgy like movement sensors. Lights turn as you think them on. Your coffee pot starts up in the morning the second you think it to.

You might even be talking about something as revolutionary as a whole new human skill, like writing. It might be that using this near telepathic ability requires a skill that needs to be learned. Really skilled thinkers might have the ability to act as super computers for automation. Any idiot might be able to turn on lights, but a truly skilled thinker might be able to perform surgery with finely controlled robotic arms, or perform microscope work and manipulation at electron microscope magnification levels.

It might even be a way to get around computer and programming limitations. A computer might have a rough time balancing and operating a military robot built to imitate human movements and mobility, but I bet a skilled thinker with a pair of VR glasses and a lot of training could do it with ease.

The possibilities are endless. If something as mundane as e-mail can revolutionize the business world (and e-mail DID revolutions the business world), imagine what this sort of stuff could do.

Re:Telepathy

[Hatta]

Which is all well and good, until you realize there's no evidence for such an assertion. As an apprentice neuropharmacologist, and an amateur cognitive scientist, I don't know of anything the brain does that can't be explained by basic chemical principles like the law of mass action. And while absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, occams razor dictates that we should choose the theory with the fewest assumptions when all else is equal. I'm open minded though, anyone have any proof?

Re:I'm getting conflicting facts

[MacJedi]

Here, it clearly states that the electrodes are on the surface of the brain. Therefore, the use of surface electrodes in this new article (about the WU, experiment this time) is not new. So, where's the development?

I agree that the article is misleading and the two sound the same but they are actually somewhat different: Wolpaw and colleagues are using flat electrodes placed on the surface of the brain. The technique is called electrocorticographic recordings (or eCog.) Donoghue and colleagues are using sharp electrodes inserted through the dura and pia into the brain as much as 1 or 1.5 mm deep. You could call this technique 'multiple cortical extracellular electrodes.'

ECogs spatially average the activity of many neurons. It's similar to an electroencephalogram (EEG) but the skull is not in the way to attenuate the signal and there is a higher spatial resolution. However with extracellular electrodes it is possible to resolve the action potentials of individual cells.