Tomorrow is Today

Cocaine-Addled Monkeys With Ceramic Brain Implants Use Electronic Prosthetics to Aid Memory

The monkeys’ neural activity was recorded by a tiny ceramic-enclosed electronic device and relayed to an external computer. In the first part of the experiment, the researchers analyzed the brain activity they had recorded from the cortex.

But then came the hard part. Memory is formed when one set of neurons processes the signals from another set, but how can you replicate this processing in an electronic device? First, you have to figure out the code the brain is using.

From the initial recordings, the research team was able to extrapolate what’s called a MIMO model—short for multi-input/multi-output. This type of mathematical model can characterize the neural firing patterns detected by the electrode implant and, after processing the patterns, spit out the signals that instruct other neurons to form the appropriate memory.

To demonstrate that their model worked, the researchers gave the monkeys cocaine. The cocaine-addled monkeys had trouble remembering the correct image. But with the implant in place and the MIMO model translating the incoming signals and feeding data back to another set of neurons, they were able to pick out the right picture about as reliably as usual, if not slightly more so.

(via Regaining Lost Brain Function | MIT Technology Review)

Cyborg Tech for Super-Hearing: Cochlear Implants Near the Tipping Point

Cochlear implants have successfully restored hearing to thousands of deaf individuals.

With steady advances in microelectronics, their footprint has shrunk to the point where a fully implantable hearing device is now a reality — the microphone can even be put under the skin…

As we learn how the brain achieves [its] fantastic feats of signal processing, and how to work with [its] innate mechanisms, these areas will become [potential] strengths of the implant, rather than weaknesses.

At [what point will people] begin to ask the inevitable question — what if you don’t have to lose your hearing to get an implant?

(via Upgrade your ears: Elective auditory implants give you cyborg hearing | ExtremeTech)

DARPA’s “Augmented Cognition” Program Raises Ethical Problems for Neuroscientists

The Pentagon’s expanding work in neuroscience in recent years has focused on medical applications, like research to understand traumatic brain injury and on concepts intended to help the military fight wars more effectively, such as studying ways to keep soldiers’ brains alert even after days without sleep.

But under the rubric of “Augmented Cognition,” DARPA has also pursued a number of military technologies, like goggles that would monitor a soldier’s brain signals to pick up potential threats before the conscious mind is aware of them.

While some of the applications might be a generation away, or may never arrive, like mind-controlled drones, others, like the brain-monitoring goggles, are already in testing (though probably not ready for use in the field).

[This raises] questions from ethicists, who are pushing for the government to begin now to think about “neuro ethics.” In a 2012 article published last year in the journal Plos Biology, Jonathan Moreno, a professor of medical ethics, and Michael Tennison, a professor of neurology, argued that many neuroscientists don’t think about the contribution of their work to warfare, or consider the ethical implication of such work.

The question they raise is what choice future soldiers might have in such cognitively enhanced warfare. “If a warfighter is allowed no autonomous freedom to accept or decline an enhancement intervention, and the intervention in question is as invasive as remote brain control,” they write, “then the ethical implications are immense.”

(via Ten extraordinary Pentagon mind experiments | KurzweilAI)

Wireless, Rechargeable Brain-Computer Interface Works for Pigs, Apes: Humans Next

historically [BCIs have] been bulky and tethered to a computer. A tether limits the mobility of the patient, and also the real-world testing that can be performed by the researchers.

Brown’s wireless BCI allows the subject to move freely, dramatically increasing the quantity and quality of data that can be gathered — instead of watching what happens when a monkey moves its arm, scientists can now analyze its brain activity during complex activity, such as foraging or social interaction.

Obviously, once the wireless implant is approved for human testing, being able to move freely — rather than strapped to a chair in the lab — would be rather empowering.

Brown’s wireless BCI, fashioned out of hermetically sealed titanium, looks a lot like a pacemaker. (See: Brain pacemaker helps treat Alzheimer’s disease.) Inside there’s a li-ion battery, an inductive (wireless) charging loop, a chip that digitizes the signals from your brain, and an antenna for transmitting those neural spikes to a nearby computer. The BCI is connected to a small chip with 100 electrodes protruding from it, which, in this study, was embedded in the somatosensory cortex or motor cortex. These 100 electrodes produce a lot of data, which the BCI transmits at 24Mbps over the 3.2 and 3.8GHz bands to a receiver that is one meter away. The BCI’s battery takes two hours to charge via wireless inductive charging, and then has enough juice to last for six hours of use.

(via Brown University creates first wireless, implanted brain-computer interface | ExtremeTech)

Rats Collaborate on Tasks Remotely Using Brain-To-Brain Communication

Pairs of rats can communicate through brain chips and collaborate to perform a task, report researchers in today’s Scientific Reports. Brain activity recorded in one rat was translated into a pattern of electrical pulses that were then transmitted to another rat that had been trained to push a particular lever in response to one of two patterns of electrical stimulation in its brain.

The rats also worked together, say the researchers. If the second rat chose the wrong lever, then the first rat would change its brain function and behavior in the next trial so that the receiving rodent was more likely to get it right, claim the scientists.

(via Rats Collaborate Through a Brain-to-Brain Interface | MIT Technology Review)

Progress in Using “Temporary Tattoos” Instead of Implants for Brain-Computer Interfaces

In recent years, brain implants have enabled people to control robotics using only their minds, raising the prospect that one day patients could overcome disabilities using bionic limbs or mechanical exoskeletons. But brain implants are invasive technologies, probably of use only to people in medical need of them.

Instead, electrical engineer Todd Coleman at the University of California at San Diego is devising noninvasive means of controlling machines via the mind, techniques virtually everyone might be able to use.

His team is developing wireless flexible electronics one can apply on the forehead just like temporary tattoos to read brain activity. “We want something we can use in the coffee shop to have fun,” Coleman says.

The devices are less than 100 microns thick, the average diameter of a human hair. They consist of circuitry embedded in a layer or rubbery polyester that allow them to stretch, bend and wrinkle. They are barely visible when placed on skin, making them easy to conceal from others.

The devices can detect electrical signals linked with brain waves, and incorporate solar cells for power and antennas that allow them to communicate wirelessly or receive energy. Other elements can be added as well, like thermal sensors to monitor skin temperature and light detectors to analyze blood oxygen levels.

Using the electronic tattoos, Coleman and his colleagues have found they can detect brain signals reflective of mental states, such as recognition of familiar images. One application they are now pursuing is monitoring premature babies to detect the onset of seizures that can lead to epilepsy or brain development problems. The devices are now being commercialized for use as consumer, digital health, medical device, and industrial and defense products by startup MC10 in Cambridge, Mass.

APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!

(via Temporary Tattoos Could Make Electronic Telepathy, Telekinesis Possible - Business Insider)

New Deep Brain Stimulation Implant Detects Changes in Brain Activity, Adjusting Output Adaptively 

Deep-brain stimulators are mainly used to regulate the movement problems associated with Parkinson’s and other diseases, but they are also used in Europe and Canada to treat epilepsy and are being used experimentally to treat severe depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

…Doctors must use trial and error to determine the best parameters for the electrical stimulation programmed into each patient’s chip.

The smarter brain stimulator is an improved version of Medtronic’s existing deep-brain stimulator device, which has already been implanted in more than 80,000 people around the world.

Medtronic has added an extra chip so that it can detect electrical activity and respond automatically to changes in the brain.

“If you are in the brain already, you might as well take advantage of the fact that you can listen in,” says Lothar Krinke, who manages the Deep Brain Stimulation division at Medtronic. This means the device could respond automatically when a patient’s symptoms grow stronger, or could turn itself off when the patient is asleep.

“We really only want to deliver the electricity when it is needed,” says Krinke. The company has tested the device in lab animals and says that next year outside teams of researchers will test it in patients with diseases such as Parkinson’s and epilepsy.

(via Brain Implant Detects, Responds to Disease - Technology Review)

Australian Scientists Implant Prototype Bionic Eye: Blind Woman Sees Pulses of Light

In a world first, scientists have successfully implanted a prototype bionic eye that has helped a woman see shapes.

Researchers from the government-funded consortium Bionic Vision Australia made the announcement in a statement yesterday; in it the implantee said she “didn’t know what to expect, but all of a sudden, I could see a little flash—it was amazing.”

The team is hoping they can start to “build” shapes based on what she sees, eventually creating a bionic eye that works like its organic counterpart.

The prototype device is set up in a lab. Electrodes in the implant stimulate nerve cells, and in the controlled environment scientists can get feedback from the user on the “flashes of light.” That could help them adjust until the “flashes of light” reflect the actual environment enough to be helpful.

It’s not full vision, but it’s an early step toward it. The next stage, the scientists say, is incorporating an external camera into a device, and creating versions with more electrodes. With 98, a person could be able to see large objects; with 1,024, they could recognize faces and large print.

(via In World First, Scientists Surgically Implant a Working Bionic Eye In a Blind Patient | Popular Science)

Researchers Record, Play Back Rat Memories with Electronic Media

In this current study the scientists had rats learn a task, pressing one of two levers to receive a sip of water. Scientists inserted a microchip into the rat’s brain, with wires threaded into their hippocampus. Here the chip recorded electrical patterns from two specific areas labeled CA1 and CA3 that work together to learn and store the new information of which lever to press to get water.

Scientists then shut down CA1 with a drug. And built an artificial hippocampal part that could duplicate such electrical patterns between CA1 and CA3, and inserted it into the rat’s brain.

With this artificial part, rats whose CA1 had been pharmacologically blocked, could still encode long-term memories. And in those rats who had normally functioning CA1, the new implant extended the length of time a memory could be held.

The next step is to test the device in monkeys, and then in humans.

Of course at this early stage a breakthrough like this brings up more questions than solutions. Memory is hugely complex, based on our individual experiences and perceptions. If we have the electrical pattern for the phrase, See Spot Run, mentioned above, would this mean the same thing for you as it does for me?

How would such a device work within context? As writer Gary Stix asked in the Scientific American article, “Would “See Spot Run” be misinterpreted as laundry mishap instead of a trotting dog?” Or as the science journalist John Horgan once put it, you might hear your wedding song, but I hear a stale pop tune.

(via The Matrix reality: Scientists successfully implant artificial memory system | SmartPlanet)