SINTN– Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation & Translational Neurosciences

 

Brain Computer Interface

Paralysis is the result of a block or break in the information highway that travels between the brain and the limbs. It is often a life sentence. Similarly, degenerative diseases such as Lou Gehrig’s or multiple sclerosis rob people, sometimes rapidly, of the ability to walk, talk or even swallow. There is little or no effective way to help these patients.

Yet researchers currently are devising innovative techniques to help people limited by neurological damage, giving patients the opportunity to communicate through machines that read brain signals. Even people who are “locked-in” and unable to speak or gesture still produce signals within brain areas that plan movements. These signals can be used by implanted micro-electrodes and computer chips that detect, pick up, and translate the impulses. This may allow patients to activate prosthetics or command computers, providing them the ability to regain functions they have lost to disease. Tapping into remaining nerves or directly into the brain for signals to animate electronic devices will soon help those limited by amputation, disease, or paralysis.

Research Pioneers


Krishna Shenoy has devised one of the fastest brain-interface approaches.

 

To close the gap between pioneering the techniques in animals and applying them to actual patients, neurosurgeon Jaimie Henderson has implemented a system to test brain interface devices in the operating room.

Artificial limbs are still cumbersome, often counterintuitive, and usually uncomfortable. Such direct control of prosthetics using brain signals is still very slow, but researchers are pushing the limits on these techniques to give the agility and naturalness required for daily use. A collaborative team is poised to rapidly move these systems into human clinical trials. The major objective is to provide a patient losing the ability to communicate with a computer that can be controlled by thought alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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