Brain/Machine Interfaces Approaching Usefulness

Gary writes with a link to a Wired article about a brain-machine interface that may eventually have practical purposes. Though right now it simply allows a user to move a train on a track by performing math in their head, someday it may result in more serious applications. "Honda, whose interface monitors the brain with an MRI machine like those used in hospitals, is keen to apply the interface to intelligent, next-generation automobiles. The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs. Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles. Since 2005, Hitachi has sold a device based on optical topography that monitors brain activity in paralyzed patients so they can answer simple questions - for example, by doing mental calculations to indicate 'yes' or thinking of nothing in particular to indicate 'no.'"

Comments

Very Cool

[phantomcircuit]

I'm looking forward to being able to write simply by thinking, typing slows me down soooo much.

I want one

[UbuntuDupe]

I can't wait till I can buy one of these things. I figure with practice, you can increase the precision of your thought and thus the number of signals you can give. Conceivably, you'd be able to enter text as quickly as you can think it.

Would increasing the use of your brain like this, to give commands, make you smarter in some way, as well?

Re:What worries me...

[venicebeach]

is what happens when you think something that you don't want to actually carry out? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has random thoughts that enter their mind and then you dismiss and don't actually do anything with. How can you tell between idle thoughts and thoughts that are supposed to bring about actions?

It's an interesting point, because the brain does use much the same circuitry for imagining action as it does for executing actions. For example, premotor cortex and supplementary motor areas are typically activated by imagining an action you don't perform, and some subregions can even be activated by seeing someone else perform an action. However, there are differences, obviously, which is why you don't perform every action you imagine (although there are a few cases of brain damage in the literature where this happens!). Primary motor cortex, which has most of the neurons that send signals downstream to the spinal cord is generally not activated by imagination.

Short answer is that a sufficiently sophisticated device could tell the difference.