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Teen Plays Videogame With Brain Signals

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-that-is-next-gen dept.

SkyFire360 writes "A team of ECoG (ElectroCorticography) researchers from Washington University in St. Louis successfully wired a young man's brain up to a computer and began reading the neurological firings in his brain. After analyzing the action potentials created when a neuron fires, they were able to get two-dimensional control of a cursor. Taking the research one step further, they decided to connect an old Atari 2600 to the signal processing computer to see if the young man could control the videogame system."

3 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Uh... isn't that ONE dimensional control? by popo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Last time I checked, space invaders was 1 dimensional movement not two.

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  2. Re:Did they figure it out, or did he? by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course. How do you think you learned to manipulate objects with your hands? It's called "biofeedback."

    KFG

  3. Re:Did they figure it out, or did he? by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was way simpler than that.

    They isolated which section of his brian was activated when he moved his tounge and hand. It sounds like the same sections fire when you just think about performing the actions.

    I bet the reason they used the tounge and hand rather then left hand\right hand is because they don't have the resolution on the grid to be able to differentiate the two.

    What I worry about is the long term effects of purposely sending "interrupt" signals to your body parts. Has this ever been studied before?