Sunday, March 27, 2011

BrainGate Turning Thought into Action

Communication

For people with locked-in syndrome - the inability to move and to speak despite being fully awake and alert (for example, due to brainstem injury or ALS) - restoration of easy communication is a priority. Our research team is developing technologies that would re-enable the ability to control a cursor on a computer screen or to type on a virtual keyboard, simply by thinking about the movement of one's own hand (for example, as if controlling a computer mouse). Initial progress toward this can be seen at:
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Research supported by:

Rehabilitation R&D Service, Department of Veterans Affairs logo National Institutes of Health logo National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering logo The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development logo National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders logo National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke logo  
National Science Foundation logo

Brain Waves Harnessed To Play Music

Using the power of the brain has long been a science fiction staple. Eduardo Miranda, composer and computer-music teacher, has created a system where someone can play music with their mind. The brain-computer interface tracks and picks up neural impulses from your brains and translates them into musical notes. The type of technology is not entirely new as other types of brain-computer interfaces let people control prosthetic limbs and even type on a computer with their thoughts.


To use the system you have to don an EEG skull cap and concentrate on four “buttons” on a screen. When a user focuses on a button, their brain fires of a unique series of impulses specific to each button and those impulses are captured by the skull cap. A series of notes is played for each respective button. Since this type of interface is not intrinsically known, calibration is needed for each user. It takes a user with locked-in syndrome, a paralysis of the entire body except the eyes, about two hours to calibrate the system during trials at the University of Essex.
Miranda came up with the idea of using brain waves to make music over ten years ago and now its getting closer to fruition. He realized that this type of device would have a large impact in music therapy. He is hoping to develop and refine the system so that it doesn’t take so long to calibrate. In the future the device will use algorithms to predict which notes the user wants to play.
[via Discovery]
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Doonesbury

Toggle (real name Leo DeLuca) - a veteran of the Iraq war. Toggle, a young heavy metal fan, was wounded in an ambush while serving as Ray Hightower's driver, and has returned home with expressive aphasia and a loss of sight in one eye. B.D., his former commanding officer, often checks in to see how he is doing. While recovering from his injuries, Toggle met Alex Doonesbury through B.D. and has become her boyfriend. He has considered attending Walden under the new GI Bill but came away from Zipper's tour unimpressed.

Doonesbury Characters In Starbucks Again With People Open Carrying Guns

Doonesbury decides to revisit the Starbucks open carry topic in another useless strip:

Doonesbury – Source
Yahoos… Morons… loudmouth gun owners?  The tone hasn’t really changed…  Holy his comics are boring.

* Technology * Designs * Ethonomics * Leadership Magazine Community Jobs Thinking Cap: "Mynd" Is the First Dry, iPhone-Compatible, Portable Brain Scanner

 

Thinking Cap: "Mynd" Is the First Dry, iPhone-Compatible, Portable Brain Scanner

BY David ZaxMon Mar 21, 2011
Neuromarketing goes mobile with this lightweight, dry, and iPhone- or iPad-compatible new device from NeuroFocus. DiY brain researchers rejoice!


NeuroFocus, a firm that brings brain research to marketing, today unveiled what it deems “the first dry, wireless headset designed to capture brainwave activity across the full brain.” The device, three years in the making, debuted at the 75th Annual Advertising Research Foundation conference in New York.
What is “neuromarketing,” the odd corner of marketing research NeuroFocus has staked out for itself? Broadly speaking, neuromarketers measure how the brain and body react to certain stimuli, then extrapolate from that information whether an advertisement, brand, product, or package is having its desired effect. Neuromarketers reportedly had a hand in the 2010 midterm elections, with several consulting for Republican candidates. Neurological research has also been used to help market movies. Recently, Fast Company also explored whether these firms might have a hand in making the movies themselves.
NeuroFocus’s new device, which it calls “Mynd,” has a few key features. It claims to get “full-brain coverage with dense-arrray EEG” sensors, yielding data “within seconds” of switching the device on. It can also network with any Bluetooth-enabled mobile device, like an iPhone or iPad. Unlike other EEG devices you may be familiar with, Mynd doesn’t need to use gel (that’s what’s meant by calling the device “dry”). And since the device isn’t too heavy itself, and can be linked to a wireless device, that basically makes it a mobile brain scanner. (See our earlier take on a “wearable” PET scanner for rats, here.) NeuroFocus envisions research panels conducted at home with the device; its CEO Dr. A.K. Pradeep tells Fast Company those might happen within the next eight months.
The Mynd device is enough of an advance that medical brain researchers are taking an interest in it. The European Tools for Brain-Computer Interaction Consortium, or TOBI, will use Mynd as its “core platform” to develop technology that could help people with neurological disabilities; NeuroFocus says it's donating several devices to the consortium. NeuroFocus advisor and UC Berkeley professor Dr. Robert Knight helped facilitate the contact at TOBI, which is led in part by Professor José del R. Millán, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology who has pioneered a number of novel brain-computer interfaces (including one featured in this slideshow on the new “thoughtpads,” from last fall). In the words of Dr. Gerwin Schalk, a research scientist in neural injury and repair at the Wadsworth Center, a New York State public health laboratory, Mynd’s real innovation is in taking brain research from being bulky and expensive to something potentially lightweight and on-the-fly: “This wireless dry electrode headset substantially reduces the cost and expertise necessary to access signals from the brain, which has profound implications for clinical and commercial applications of EEG technology,” he said in a statement.
NeuroFocus CEO Dr. A.K. Pradeep tells Fast Company he was especially excited to be contributing to science: “I run a marketing company, and I know we’ve taken so much from science. It’s kind of cute and funny to give back to science. The headsets we design are now actually going to be used by people in wheelchairs to control those wheelchairs. It’s really a fascinating moment.”
NeuroFocus is expected to roll out the device in labs all over the world shortly; the device is not for sale commercially however, and Pradeep declines to say how much each one costs.
Follow Fast Company on Twitter.
[Images: NeuroFocus]

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Friday, March 4, 2011

Write letters in only 35 hours with brain speller

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

King Speech's and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Kudos, for the "King's Speech". I did not watch the "King Speech" but another film that is Amazing is "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly". Watch the film and give my your opinion.
Cheers