BrainPort Allows People To Reclaim Damaged Senses

Karma Star writes "There is a news article on a new device called a BrainPort, which is special device that is worn like a helmet, with a strip of tape containing an array of 144 microelectrodes hanging off the headset which is placed on the tongue. The BrainPort then sends signals to the tongue which are then picked up by the brain, allowing the user to regain otherwise lost sensory input. More at the NY Times (soul stealing subscription required)."

Comments

Thats great

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I use it to recover my sense of humour?

Just one question.

[TrollBridge]

Can I wear it over my tin-foil hat?

Big deal

[LouCifer]

Back when I was in highschool, I'd put a little piece of paper on my tounge and in about an hour I'd get the sensation of flight, could "see" sound, speak to animals and the like.

Plus, I didnt have to wear a helmet when I dropped acid.

Confused senses

[freeze128]

This music tastes Great!

Re:Confused senses

[mforbes]

I'm a synaesthete myself, which is why I never tried any of the hallucinogenics-- I was always afraid I'd lose that wonderful crossing of the senses that I so enjoy.

I'm fortunate that my case is very mild; if it hadn't been for a number of conversations in early adolescence where I tried to describe something using adjectives that made perfect sense to me but not to others, I would never have known I'm different. In high school orchestra, most of the other kids could understand when I'd describe the sound of a viola as warm, or a piccolo as cold... but they'd have no idea what I meant when I started describing the grain of the viola sound (looks a lot like highly-polished oak under a tungsten lamp), or the brilliant white light of a b# played in second position on a violin's E string.

I read years ago in the Washington Post about a case of a fellow who was much more severely affected than I. Instead of seeing the sounds overlayed on the 'normal' visual field, and being able to easily distinguish what was seen with the eyes vs what was seen through hearing, his senses were so crosswired that this was no longer possible. The anecdote given in the story was that he stopped to buy something from a street vendor (ice cream, I think). But when the vendor spoke, his voice looked to the synaesthete like charcoal bricks falling out of the guy's mouth. The article said he hadn't been able to eat ice cream (or whatever the food was) since then. Like I said, I'm fortunate. My symptoms are thoroughly enjoyable & have never presented problems like that.

Already exists

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

A two-electrode version of this device exists in the form of licking 9V batteries, to give users the sense of whether 9V batteries are dead. It also works to test the main I hear...

Re:Yes but

[mfender9]

Well, then you'd just spend your life watching Julia Roberts movies and not worry about it...

The only problem with this

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything either feels, tastes, or smells like chicken.

Re:NYT Article Text

[un1xl0ser]

For people buy into that paragraph bullshit.

New Tools to Help Patients Reclaim Damaged Senses
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

Published: November 23, 2004

Cheryl Schiltz vividly recalls the morning she became a wobbler. Seven years ago, recovering from an infection after surgery with the aid of a common antibiotic, she climbed out of bed feeling pretty good.

"Then I literally fell to the floor," she said recently. "The whole world started wobbling. When I turned my head, the room tilted. My vision blurred. Even the air felt heavy."

The antibiotic, Ms. Schiltz learned, had damaged her vestibular system, the part of the brain that provides visual and gravitational stability. She was forced to quit her job and stay home, clinging to the walls to keep from toppling over.

But three years ago, Ms. Schiltz volunteered for an experimental treatment - a fat strip of tape, placed on her tongue, with an array of 144 microelectrodes about the size of a postage stamp. The strip was wired to a kind of carpenter's level, which was mounted on a hard hat that she placed on her head. The level determined her spatial coordinates and sent the information as tiny pulses to her tongue.

The apparatus, called a BrainPort, worked beautifully. By "buzzing" her tongue once a day for 20 minutes, keeping the pulses centered, she regained normal vestibular function and was able to balance.

Ms. Schiltz and other patients like her are the beneficiaries of an astonishing new technology that allows one set of sensory information to substitute for another in the brain.

Using novel electronic aids, vision can be represented on the skin, tongue or through the ears. If the sense of touch is gone from one part of the body, it can be routed to an area where touch sensations are intact. Pilots confused by foggy conditions, in which the horizon disappears, can right their aircraft by monitoring sensations on the tongue or trunk. Surgeons can feel on their tongues the tip of a probe inside a patient's body, enabling precise movements.

Sensory substitution is not new. Touch substitutes for vision when people read Braille. By tapping a cane, a blind person perceives a step, a curb or a puddle of water but is not aware of any sensation in the hand; feeling is experienced at the tip of the cane.

But the technology for swapping sensory information is largely the effort of Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a neuroscientist in the University of Wisconsin Medical School's orthopedics and rehabilitation department. More than 30 years ago, Dr. Bach-y-Rita developed the first sensory substitution device, routing visual images, via a head-mounted camera, to electrodes taped to the skin on people's backs. The subjects, he found, could "see" large objects and flickering candles with their backs. The tongue, sensitive and easy to reach, turned out to be an even better place to deliver substitute senses, Dr. Bach-y-Rita said.

Until recently sensory substitution was confined to the laboratory. But electronic miniaturization and more powerful computer algorithms are making the technology less cumbersome. Next month, the first fully portable device will be tested in Dr. Bach-y-Rita's lab.

The BrainPort is nearing commercialization. Two years ago, the University of Wisconsin patented the concept and exclusively licensed it to Wicab Inc., a company formed by Dr. Bach-y-Rita to develop and market BrainPort devices. Robert Beckman, the company president, said units should be available a year from now.

Meanwhile, a handful of clinicians around the world who are using the BrainPort on an experimental basis are effusive about its promise.

"I have never seen any other device do what this one does," said Dr. F. Owen Black, an expert on vestibular disorders at the Legacy Clinical Research and Technology Center in Portland, Ore. "Our patients are begging us to continue using the device."

Dr. Maurice Ptito, a neuroscientist at University of Montreal School of Optometry, is conducting bra

Re:NYT Article Text

[lisaparratt]

By tapping a cane, a blind person perceives a step, a curb or a puddle of water but is not aware of any sensation in the hand; feeling is experienced at the tip of the cane. IME, the reverse is also true - when riding my motorbike, I'm not aware of pushing on the handlebars, shifting weight etc - I just think where I want it to go and it does.

Re:Taste

[Tackhead]

> Picture this:
>
> Fighter helmet with mouth piece that sits against the pilots tongue. When the computer detects a threat it can stimulate the pilots tongue in relation to the direction and distance of the target. After a little training this sort of thing would really increase reaction time.
>
> Though it would make a conversation with the tower a bit tough :)

You must taste... in Russian!

In Thoviat Rutthia, Firefoth flieth thoo?

"Thyre rearwurdth mitthile, dammit!"
[nothing happens]
"Mmmmm.... Borscht!"
[*KABOOM*, second Firefox burninated]
"Better ithe up a cold one boyth, I'th comin' home!"