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Medicine Science Technology

High-Bandwidth Wireless BCI Demonstrated In Humans For First Time (arstechnica.com) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the huge-step-forward dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Coming on the heels of the Neuralink announcement earlier this month -- complete with video showing a monkey playing Pong with its mind, thanks to a wireless brain implant -- researchers with the BrainGate Consortium have successfully demonstrated a high-bandwidth wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) in two tetraplegic human subjects. The researchers described their work in a recent paper published in the journal IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering. As for the latest Neuralink breakthrough, Ars Science Editor John Timmer wrote last week that most of the individual pieces of Neuralink's feat have been done before -- in some cases, a decade before (BrainGate is among those earlier pioneers). But the company has taken two important steps toward its realization of a commercial BCI: miniaturizing the device and getting it to communicate wirelessly, which is harder than it sounds.

According to [John Simeral of Brown University, a member of the BrainGate consortium and lead author of the new paper], the BrainGate wireless system makes the opposite tradeoff -- higher bandwidth and fidelity -- because it wants all the finer details of the data for its ongoing research. In that regard, it complements the Utrecht and Neuralink systems in the BCI space. The new BrainGate system is based on the so-called Brown Wireless Device (BWD) designed by Arto Nurmikko, and it replaces the cables with a small transmitter that weighs about 1.5 ounces. The transmitter sits atop the user's head and connects wirelessly to an implant electrode array inside the motor cortex.

There were two participants in the clinical trial -- a 35-year-old man and a 65-year-old man -- both of whom were paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. They were able to continuously use the BCI for a full 24 hours, even as they slept, yielding continuous data over that time period. (The medical-grade battery lasts for 36 hours.) "We can learn more about the neural signals that way because we can record over long periods of time," said Simeral. "And we can also begin to learn a little bit about how people actually will use the system, given the freedom to do so." His team was encouraged by the fact that one of its study participants often asked if they could leave the wireless transmitters on a little longer. He has a head tracker he can use as a fallback, but several nights a week, he would choose to use the wireless BrainGate system because he liked it. "Right now, we typically decode or interpret the spiking activity from networks of neurons," said Simeral. "There are other encoding mechanisms that have been studied in the brain that have to do with how the oscillations in the brain are related to these spiking signals. There's information in the different oscillation frequencies that might relate to, for example, sleep state, attention state, other phenomenon that we care about. Without a continuous recording, you've surrendered the ability to learn about any of those. Learning how this all happens in the human brain in the home as people are behaving and having different thoughts requires having a broadband system recording from the human brain."

"The ability to potentially have individuals with disability using these systems at home on demand, I think is a great step forward," said Simeral. "More broadly, going forward, having more players in the field, having more funding, is important. I see nothing but great things from all of these interactions. For our own work, we see things on the horizon that were impossible five years ago, when there was essentially nobody in the corporate world interested in this space. So I think it's a very promising time."
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High-Bandwidth Wireless BCI Demonstrated In Humans For First Time More

High-Bandwidth Wireless BCI Demonstrated In Humans For First Time

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  • One day, telepathy.

    • One day, telepathy.

      With commercials.

    • Re:Making a connection. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday April 29, 2021 @05:35AM (#61327030) Homepage

      One day: no dups from Slashdot ;)

      (And for those who actually want to see this... thing... there's pictures in the paper here [ieee.org]. It's... special ;) )

      (As a reminder, BrainGate uses a Utah Array, which is basically like a little bed of nails jammed into the brain, straight through whatever blood vessels might be in the way, one sensor per pin)

      • As a reminder, BrainGate uses a Utah Array, which is basically like a little bed of nails

        And for that reason, can only be left contacting the brain
        for a few days, after which major brain surgery is
        needed to remove them.

        This is a long way from anything truly useful.

    • This is going to become in demand when one of these guys beats PewDiePie

    • We are all becoming cyborgs. Megacorporation's are the new government. Information is power and currency. It sounds like the future has imploded into the present [genius.com].

  • Damn, can't replace your own battery.

  • Touchy subject sometimes. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Thursday April 29, 2021 @12:25AM (#61326564)

    I wonder if this will be met with the same rage by the "activist" types in the disability community as other technologies. There is some bizarro resistance to "fixing" (oh no I dih-unt, that will piss them off) issues with disabled people. Cochlear implants, oh don't even get them started on that shit I'm surprised nobody's been killed over it. And then there was some company making a motorized wheelchair that could climb stairs. That pissed the Twitterati off to no end, how dare they! Instead, build ramps! Because, as all sane people know you can only do one thing.

    Then you get the people pissed off if you try to fix autism. Largely these are the people who proudly proclaim themselves as "neuroatypical" any chance they get, like keto-bros or crossfitters. They certainly aren't the ones who are barely functioning. But they have this idea that "curing autism" is like killing them. Muh Yooogenics!!!

    All of this goes to further my basic hypothesis: People have gone fucking nuts. Fuck that, if I go deaf I will absolutely want at least the option of hearing again. Same with blind. If I break my spine and you can give me a cool ass wheelchair, hook me up. If I can't afford it, oh well, and I do agree we should be making places accessible where it's at least somewhat reasonable. And if I become mentally ill and you can chem me up to fix me so I'm not a fucking burden then by all means mainline that shit in my veins or put an implant in my head.

    • I'm sure in the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided universe that attitude has been overcame.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Maybe we can get you a new grammar implant. You seem to have the C.D. Reimer version now.

    • I wonder if security for this will be handled by industry in the same way IoT security (or really, most medical device security [bbc.com]) has been.

    • Re:Touchy subject sometimes. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday April 29, 2021 @02:00AM (#61326704)

      Cochlear implants, oh don't even get them started on that shit

      Deaf people have their own language and culture. They are concerned about losing that. But that is a special case. There isn't the same sort of cultural cohesion around any other disability.

      Then you get the people pissed off if you try to fix autism.

      Low functioning autism should be fixed.

      But we "fix" high functioning autism at our peril. It is Aspies like Musk, Jobs, and Tony Stark that innovate and drive our civilization forward. While the neurotypicals are on their Saturday night dates and watching Monday Night Football, the nerds are writing software and designing cobalt-free battery cathodes.

      • What makes you think any of those people you list had or have Aspergers?

        • There's no evidence, obviously. It's more that a certain subset of nerds who have been diagnosed with Asperger's/autism and who aren't successful, hero worship nerds like Musk who is successful. And obviously, because he's successful and a nerd, it must be because he also has Asperger's/autism... not because of other factors like, I dunno, being born into a huge amount of fucking wealth. Basically, people like OP are trying to validate their own existence by projecting their own traits onto their heroes, wh

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Nobody is angry about the devices or the research. They're angry because you're being a d*** and calling them broken less-than humans to their faces.

      I mean, if someone comes up to you and says "hey, broke-brain, go get your shit fixed because you're stupiding up the place", would you be thanking them for pointing that out for you? The research is to help people be the sort of people they want to be, not what you think they had ought to be.

      • I really think you've taken that comment the wrong way. The OP is pointing out that there seems to be a subset of people, often who are not disabled, who seem hellbent on portraying disabilities as some sort of gift or positive (see "differently abled"). But they aren't - they're fundamentally down to a malfunctioning human body, and we have the technology to repair (or "fix" if you want to be crude) these malfunctions, and most disabled people would be really happy if they had a body that worked as intende

    • Re:Touchy subject sometimes. (Score:4, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday April 29, 2021 @03:45AM (#61326892) Homepage Journal

      You should take the time to listen to their concerns, they are actually quite rational.

      For example high tech stair climbing wheelchairs are great, but don't help people who can't afford them, or who can't use them for some reason, or who don't use a wheelchair but still have mobility issues that a ramp helps with.

      For deaf people the worry is that they have developed a culture and if there are no more deaf people it will die. Or more likely if there are very few deaf people because most, but not all of them can have their hearing fixed, it will be bad for the few who can't use this technology. The argument isn't that it shouldn't happen at all, it's that they are already marginalized and they want some consideration given to how new treatments will affect their community and what can be done to help those who can't make use of them.

      • For example high tech stair climbing wheelchairs are great, but don't help people who can't afford them, or who can't use them for some reason, or who don't use a wheelchair but still have mobility issues that a ramp helps with.

        None of those are valid arguments against developing better wheelchairs.

        For deaf people the worry is that they have developed a culture and if there are no more deaf people it will die.

        And it should die. "Deaf culture" only came into existence because deafness is a problem; we are now able to correct that problem, so there is no longer a reason for said culture to exist, except as a historical footnote. If anything, deaf people should be embracing its end.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Of course better wheelchairs are a good thing, the point is that trying to solve a problem like stairs just by inventing a better wheelchair doesn't work.

          More over it shifts the responsibility onto the individual and away from the owners of public buildings.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DarkOx ( 621550 )

            More over it shifts the responsibility onto the individual and away from the owners of public buildings.

            Why because you are so lacking in imagination that we could not find other solutions. I mean what if we just amended the ADA to say something like you must install ramps -or- provide some alternative accommodation like make available a certain number stair capable wheelchairs?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Why not just ask wheelchair users and other disabled people what they think?

              In the UK ramps are pretty much mandatory and it's a good thing. Personally though if there wasn't a ramp and they offered me a special wheelchair instead I'd be pretty annoyed. For regular wheelchair users it would probably be even more annoying - they have to switch chair, often not an easy task, it delays them and they end up in a chair that they are not used to and maybe isn't comfortable for them.

      • For deaf people the worry is that they have developed a culture and if there are no more deaf people it will die.

        If there is a culture that we should destroy then it's deaf culture. Nobody, let alone a child should be forced to feel less apart of the world for the sake of someone else's culture and yet this is precisely what they insist on. It's so wrong and downright immoral that I'm forced to conclude that they are ignorant of what they are demanding.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I don't disagree that ideally nobody would be deaf, but realistically any treatment isn't going to cure all possible causes of deafness. As such the community will shrink and that could be a problem for those left. Not an insurmountable problem, but one which it would be nice if we could address at the same time.

          • I agree. I would point out however, that many causes of deafness are syndromes of genetic disorders. With genetic screening, we could identify those that would be born deaf in early fetal development. Iceland has done a fantastic job in eliminating down's syndrome because of genetic screening. Hopefully in the future we will be able to correct genetic defects instead of simply aborting the pregnancy.

            The ignorant will call it eugenics but when confronted with the choice, few choose differently.

            • It endlessly fascinates me how we have decided to target the one group of people in this world who are consistently happy [nih.gov] for elimination because we feel they aren't productive enough. Really puts the lie to the whole "It's for their own good" justification.

              • It endlessly fascinates me how we have decided to target the one group of people in this world who are consistently happy [nih.gov] for elimination because we feel they aren't productive enough.

                It has nothing to do with their productivity. It has everything to do with the costs of their care, both literal and metaphorical. You may have the energy to take care of person with the mind of a infant for 40 years. To further complicate matters, people with down's syndrome usually have very expensive medical issues which costs millions of dollars and thus regularly bankrupt parents. They always show you the high functioning people with down's syndrome, they never show you the ones that just drool, shi

          • As such the community will shrink and that could be a problem for those left.

            Tough tits.

      • OK so let's say there is a hospital with 100 sick people with a deadly disease, but they only have enough cure for 70 people. Your "solution" is that nobody should get the cure because they need to have solidarity with the 30 who will miss out? Either solve the problem for everyone or solve it for nobody?

        The concern that those who still have to use wheelchairs won't be accommodated because there won't be enough people to warrant building ramps is nonsensical. It just means they have to wait until the prices

      • So it seems to be either you heal / cure / fix everyone with a similar disability, or you don't heal / cure / fix the disability,

        If I have a disability, I want to be given the choice of deciding if the money / pain / discomfort / other resources needed to heal / cure / fix me is worth it or not.

        Not some other self entitled prick who decides that I should not even have the choice.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Serious question. How did you so completely misunderstand what i wrote? I want to understand what happened so I can make it clearer next time.

    • Your whole post is about trying to piss people off and contributing nothing to the discussion, and you claim OTHER people are the problem. Right.

      Talk about cochlear implants if you want to, they're god damned amazing. See how easy that is?

      Oh my, some people _somewhere_ get pissed off thinking about cochlear implants, and YOU get pissed off thinking about them being pissed off thinking about being pissed off. Have fun with that circle jerk moron. You were born in 99 right, Christ, that figures.

  • Good enough for me. He always knew what he was talking about.
  • An early 3 digit [xkcd.com] xkcd was imagining some open source unix initiative to add an USB port to humans.

    As open source unix projects go, the usual must have happened. The pioneering great minds with fantastic ideas were squabbling over protocols, Nah, There is no need to support powered bus, just signal is enough vs we dont need power bus right now, but must have provision in the protocol for future expansion, yeah. Five rounds of RFDs later project got forked and then again and the grad students who actually

  • I would suggest many of those amongst us with disabling injury and/or neuron disease to be most interested.
    The simple ability to drive a cursor around a screen (with clicks) .. via thought.
    Might sound a bit corny but I am sure it would be life changing for many.

  • Knowing that just about technology is not immune from being compromised by external third parties, am I the only one who immediately became concerned that wireless communication access to a brain implant centered in the motor cortex could be a nightmare if it was compromised at a distance by a nefarious agent? I find the idea nightmarish, and the risk vector will only broaden as more brain implants (via wireless control) became ubiquitous in future populations.

  • I overclocked my brain.

  • Things that get put in the body don't stay there too long.

    How long do you get out of regular wifi routers? I'm happy to get 3 years !
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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