Control video with brainpower alone

[ralphwiggum 6]

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http://www.cnn.com/2004....ex.html

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Using thought alone and with some electrodes placed on the surface of the brain, four volunteers were able to control a video game, U.S. researchers reported Monday.

Simply by thinking the word "move", the volunteers played the simple video game, the researchers reported.

"We are using pure imagination. These people are not moving their limbs," said Dr. Eric Leuthardt, a neurosurgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis who worked on the study.

Their findings add to work being done at several centers and are aimed at finding ways to help people control computers or machines using brainpower alone. Potentially, people paralyzed by disease or accidents could use such devices to work, read, write and even possibly to move around.

Leuthardt said they tested four patients with epilepsy.

"These electrodes are placed on peoples' brains on a routine basis for seizure localization," Leuthardt said in a telephone interview.

The patients have their skulls opened and the electrodes placed on the surface of the brain to find out where their seizures are originating, so the connections in that area can be cut in the hope of a cure.

"We piggy-backed our study on that," Leuthardt said.

Other researchers have worked with implanted electrodes in both monkeys and humans, but Leuthardt said this approach does not require putting anything deep into the brain.

"There is the potential for it to be very much less invasive," he said.

Writing in Monday's issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering, Leuthardt and Daniel Moran, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, said the patients learned in minutes how to control a computer cursor.

"It took six minutes of training and they all achieved control in less than 24 minutes," Leuthardt said.

"After a brief training session, the patients could play the game by using signals that come off the surface of the brain," added Moran. "They achieved between 74 and 100 percent accuracy, with one patient hitting 33 out of 33 targets correctly in a row."

During the study their patients were forced to stay in bed tethered to a computer for up to two weeks, but Moran and Leuthardt hope to develop electrodes that can transmit signals without physical connections.

"You can't keep wires directly from the brain to the outside world indefinitely because of the increased risk of infection," Leuthardt added. "We have to create a wireless system."

Leuthardt and Moran centered about 32 electrodes over the sensory motor cortex of the brain and a region called Broca's area, which is associated with speech.

The pair did their work on a small amount of money -- about $20,000 for the whole study, they said. "We really built this from matchsticks and paperclips," Moran said.

"There will have to be a rigorous study on monkeys for an indeterminate number of years before we can consider permanent implants in human subjects, but we're really excited about this advance," he added.

A team at Duke University in North Carolina reported in March they had used electrodes implanted deep in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients to transmit signals that might someday be used to operate remote devices.

yes this is something. by using brain neuron activity, we can make an apparatus that understands signals...maybe that's why aliens kinda look like what they are? the advanced species only need to use brain for controlling instruments and rest of the body is for minimal use?

back on topic: maybe they can make one that enables us to control OFP without keyboard someday.

[Badgerboy 0]

Only providing the opening of my skull isn't mandatory.

[DarkLight 0]

So they can already register what a man thinks?

That's some spooky shit... could do a lot of damage in the future if you ask me... once it's been developed that is...

but still pretty cool

[bn880 5]

No I think they simply record brain activity when the person thinks a particular word, this is not the same as picking up movement imagination, but hopefully it will get there. Thinking and forming words is very complex as you probably know, much more so than sending movement signals to a limb, most of hte processing with movement is about perception of the outside world, and complex decision making on how to move. So picking up the pure movement thoughts is more difficult as it doesn't spurr all that activity.

Hmm, Adaptive AI may be quite useful in learning/filtering what comprises a move thought. Denoir?

[Mister Frag 0]

Can we use the existing implants that all of us already have, or do we need new game-specific ones?

(Mister Frag pulls down tinfoil hat tightly to avoid government detection and reprogramming)

[quicksand 0]

Science is trully fantastic and all my hopes are strained in it.

On this topic,this are just the first mandatory steps to fully understand how our brain works and to develope and unlock it(the average human uses only 10% of his brain capacity) to a level were all our values will be changed,see other dimensions,understanding time in a diefferent way and every other thing that right now we can only imagine and what we can not because of our shortsight to be in our grasp.

Scary but in the same time intriguing and captivating.

[bn880 5]

Well I'm not so sure I'd like to have even 30% more of my brain working, as it could mean being so sick with society and the state of everything that you can't handle it. Just remember, stupid people worry a lot less about everything relevant.

If you really wanted to create super smart people who used more of their brains, you could to do a breeding program as I think someone suggested in the 40's, hehehe. Otherwise all of us can use a lot more of our brains by solving a lot of problems and practicing every day. It is like a muscle though I think, take it easy for 6 months and you're back to using that ~10%.

[pitufo 0]

I'm sure I heard somewhere that that 10% thing is BS... but unfortunately I can't tell you any more.

[InqWiper 0]

Yes I have heard that 10% is what you used to think but you are actually using alot more, not 100% though. Think im gonna visit google now.

Quote[/b] ]Well I'm not so sure I'd like to have even 30% more of my brain working, as it could mean being so sick with society and the state of everything that you can't handle it. Just remember, stupid people worry a lot less about everything relevant.

Ignorance is blizz

[walker 0]

Hi all

It should save on typing.

Kind Regards Walker

[SpecOp9 0]

Teleporting, controling things with our mind...

I'm almost scared of what the next 10 years will bring us..

[DarkLight 0]

Actually... I'm scared of what the world is bringing us today...