Gizmodo: brain control

Toyota Scientists Succeed in Thought-Controlled Wheelchair

Stephen Climpson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:20:00 EDT

Sure, brain wave-controlled robots, music, cell-phones, and games give us tech lust, but Toyota's announcement that it's developed a way to control a wheel chair—without the need for movement or voice—fills me with equal amounts of awesome.

Seeing technology applied in a field that has the potential to help so many makes for a nice change sometimes, ya know? The breakthrough comes from scientists at the BSI-Toyota Collaboration Center, which teams various groups including Toyota Motor and the mostly-Japanese-government-funded RIKEN
research unit).

At this stage, the system centers on an electroencephalograph (EEG) scanner cap that the wheelchair user wears so their brain waves can be scanned and analyzed by a computer. The result is the ability to make movements almost in real time. Stopping is reportedly a little harder, with the user having to puff up a cheek to trigger a detector worn on the face. Still, that's pretty freakn'cool. [Jalopnik]

Control Cellphones With Your Brain Using the NeuroSky Sensor

Elaine Chow — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:10:35 EDT

In case you've ever wanted to dabble in telepathy, NeuroSky Inc. has prototyped a new sensor that lets you control your cellphone with brainwaves. Based on similar medical technology, the system can roughly measure brain relaxation and concentration to pass on appropriate commands to a cellphone.

Though the system is made up of several parts right now, NeuroSky plans on integrating everything into a small chip in the near future. I hope the final version of this product includes a brain inebriation detector. Otherwise, I pray for all of us cellphone users already prone to drunk dialing. [Tech On]

Open-Skull Brain-Machine Interface to Control Robotic Limbs

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:40:00 EDT

A neurosurgery team at Osaka University is now installing brain-machine interfaces directly into patients' heads. They claim the invasive open-skull surgery allows control over robotic limbs with the mind more accurately. In fact, in trials with four test subjects, their method has more than 80% accuracy.

Team leader Professor Toshiki Yoshimine says that using electrode sheets directly installed over the brain's surface increases the sensibility in comparison to skin electrodes. This is a risky procedure in and of itself, so the team has been working with volunteers that had electrodes installed for other medical applications, like epilepsy monitoring.

The operation doesn't require penetration into the brain itself: they put the electrode sheet in the central sulcus, also called the Rolandic fissure after Luigi Rolando, the Italian professor who devoted his life to the study of brain anatomy. This fold separates the brain's parietal lobe from the frontal lobe, but more importantly in this case, the primary motor cortex from the primary somatosensory cortex—the key area for voluntary muscle operation in the body.

The Osaka University team's next step is to actually connect these patients to actual robotic limbs, so they can control them using the software modelled after the data collected from their previous experiments. [Asahi via Pink Tentacle]

Second Life Gets Brain Controls

Christopher Mascari — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:15:56 EDT

A brain-computer interface (BCI) system has been developed by the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory that allows a Second Life avatar to be controlled simply by a user's thoughts. By using a electrode-equipped headpiece that receives signals from the brain's motor cortex which is connected to a EEG machine, the thought- moving data is sent to the BCI system.

When the user just thinks about moving his arm or leg the BCI system correlates the movements to a keyboard emulator, which then controls the action in Second Life. Since the system is limited to basic actions, there are plans to improve the BCI for more elaborate movements. Even though the researchers hope this will help psychically impaired people communicate and do business in Second Life, we still think the first life, real life, is more important. [Nikkei Net via Pink Tentacle]