Neural Interfaces

Imagine your motor cortex fully activated while you have full muscle tone but both what your cortex says you are experiencing and what you are actually experiencing are not what you body is actually doing. You were trained to do this on a brain computer interface. Highly Skilled lucid dreamers in intense sessions and brain tomography on the level of seismic tomography make this all possible. Accessing the brain thru non-invasive means is vital in Berlin where Brain Computer Interfacers and the Locked-in are moving things with only their minds; however, one might say that all this research is treading water awaiting advances in Neuro-surgery. I’m pitching the thoroughly developed non-invasive technique as a necessary prelude to the invasive interface. I’m just looking for sympathetic places to post the story I’m telling in the form of a fictitious photo journal. http://deepcomputedbciashortstory.blogspot.com/

This PRWeb article takes a look at a high-tech virtual reality device that helps parkinson's patients walk safely again. From the article: "MediGait LLC combines virtual reality programming and real-time motion detection into a cell-phone sized device that helps PD patients regain their natural ability to walk normally. This device helps PD patients by jump-starting a process that induces a neuroplastic brain response. This means the patient's brain literally rewires itself using healthy circuits bypassing diseased areas sometimes in as little as two weeks.

This Behavioral and brain functions article describes a study about modulating presence and impulsive behavior by external stimulation of the brain. From the article: ""The feeling of being there" is one possible way to describe the phenomenon of feeling present in a virtual environment and to act as if this environment is real. One brain area, which is hypothesized to be critically involved in modulating this feeling (also called presence) is the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), an area also associated with the control of impulsive behavior.

This NewScientistTech article reports Erik Ramsey who is almost totally paralysed is learning to talk again with the help of an electrode implanted in his speech-motor cortex. You may also check the video on YouTube. From the article: "Nine years ago, a brain-stem stroke left Erik Ramsey almost totally paralysed, but with his mental faculties otherwise intact. Today he is learning to talk again – although so far he can only manage basic vowel sounds.

In 2004, Ramsey had an electrode implanted in his speech-motor cortex by Philip Kennedy's team at Neural Signals, a company based in Duluth, Georgia, US, who hoped the signal from Ramsey's cortex could be used to restore his speech.

This NewScientistTech article reports a wireless antenna that channels signals along human skin, developed at Queen's University Belfast, could broadcast signals over your body to connect up medical implants or portable gadgets. From the article: "The new power-efficient approach could make more of established medical devices like pacemakers or help future implants distributed around the body work together.

Just one of the small hockey-puck-like antennas developed at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, would be able to connect to gadgets anywhere else on the body, says William Scanlon who made the design with colleague Gareth Conway.

This NewScientistTech article reports a software developed in the US can perceive moving images in much the same way a cat's brain does. From the article: "The researchers hope the work will one day lead to implants that make it possible for people to see without an optic nerve.

Researchers at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, were motivated by the fact that, until now, models of the way brains respond to visual input used simple images like dots, bars and grids. They are typically unable to cope with the complex scenes a human would usually see.

This Physorg article reports has designed a baseball cap which detects and analyzes the electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from your brain. From the article: "It looks like an ordinary baseball cap. But when you put it on, the cap detects and analyzes the electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from your brain. It can even tell you if you’re getting too sleepy when driving based on your brain wave patterns. Similar technology could also allow you to control home electronics such as TVs, computers, and air conditioners, all by just thinking about them.

This EETimes article reports scientists of the Aachen university clinic and the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits have developed a retina implant that wirelessly receives optical signals from the outside. From the article: "The development aims at a technology to restore eyesight for blind persons.

Worldwide, about 3 million persons suffer from Retina Pigmentosa, an eye disease which slowly leads to complete blindness. While retina cells die off, some nerve cells in many cases remain intact. These cells can be stimulated through technical seeing aids such as retina implants. However, power supply and signal transmission through wires incorporate significant hurdles for the patient as well as for designers.

This NewScientistTech article reports a neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals has been used to demonstrate a "voiceless" phone call for the first time. From the article: "With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by a computerised voice.

This ComputerWorld Hardware article takes a look at products shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Most of them are devoted to new ways to input data to a PC or gaming console, including a variety of inputs via voice commands or gestures that are registered via video detection and neural interfaces. Systems like Second Life and Activeworlds were also demonstrated as systems businesses can use for training employees, holding meetings and demonstrating products to consumers.