Happy Nice Mall

In another groundbreaking study published last year, Jaimie Henderson and several colleagues, including biomedical engineer Francis Willett and Krishna Shenoy, an electrical engineer, reported an equally fascinating but completely different approach to communication via the neural interface. The scientists recorded the neurons firing in Dennis DeGray’s brain as he imagined himself writing words in a notebook with a pen, as he tried to recreate the different hand movements required for each letter. He mentally typed thousands of words for the system to reliably recognize the unique patterns of neural activity specific to each letter and output the words to a screen. “You really learn to hate M’s after a while,” he told me with characteristic good humor. All in all, the method was extremely successful. DeGray was able to type at up to 90 characters or 18 words per minute – more than twice as fast as previous efforts with the cursor and virtual keyboard. He is the world’s fastest mental typist. “Sometimes I go so fast that it’s just a big blur,” he said. “My concentration gets to the point where it’s not unusual for them to remind me to breathe.”

To date, success in brain-computer interfaces has relied on a mix of invasive and non-invasive technologies. Many scientists in this field, including those working with DeGray, rely on the surgically embedded barbed electrode array manufactured by Blackrock Neurotech, a Utah-based company. The Utah Array, as is known, can distinguish the signals of individual neurons and allows for more refined control of connected devices, but the surgery it requires can result in infection, inflammation and scarring, which can contribute to the eventual degradation of signal strength. Interfaces located outside the skull, such as headphones connected to the EEG, are currently limited to eavesdropping on the collective firing of groups of neurons, sacrificing power and sensitivity for safety. Further complicating the situation, most neural interfaces studied in labs require cumbersome hardware, cables, and a computer environment, while most commercially available interfaces are basically remote controls for primitive video games, toys, and applications. These commercial headsets don’t solve any real-world problems, and the more powerful systems in clinical trials are not very practical for everyday use.

With this issue in mind, Elon Musk’s company Developed by Neuralink A string of flexible polymer threads nailed to a bottle cap-sized wireless radio and more than 3,000 small electrodes connected to a signal processor, as well as a robot that can surgically insert the threads into the brain and prevent blood vessels to reduce inflammation. Neuralink has tested its system in animals and says it will begin human trials this year.

Synchron, headquartered in New York, developed a device called the Stentrode this does not require open brain surgery. It is a four-centimeter, self-expanding tubular electrode cage that is inserted through the carotid artery into one of the major blood vessels of the brain. Once in place, a Stentrode detects local electric fields produced by nearby groups of neurons in the motor cortex and transmits the recorded signals to a wireless transmitter embedded in the chest, which transmits them to an external decoder. In 2021, Synchron became the first company to receive FDA approval to conduct human clinical trials of a permanently implantable brain-computer interface. So far, four people with varying degrees of paralysis have taken Stentrodes and used them to control personal computers at home unattended, some with eye tracking and other assistive technologies.

Philip O’Keefe, 62, of Greendale, Australia, received a Stentrode in April 2020. Due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), O’Keefe can only walk short distances, cannot move his left arm, and loses the ability to speak clearly. At first he explained that he needed to concentrate heavily on the imaginary movements required to operate the system – in his case, he was considering moving his left ankle for different durations. “But the more you use it, the more it’s like riding a bike,” he said. “You get to a stage where you don’t think much about the action you need to take. Whether it’s opening an email, scrolling through a web page, or typing some letters, you think about the function you need to execute.” In December, O’Keefe becomes the first person in the world to send a message to Twitter using a neural interface: “No keystrokes or sounds needed,” he wrote. “I created this tweet just by thinking. #helloworldbci”

Thomas Oxley, a neurologist and founding CEO of Synchron, thinks future brain-computer interfaces will fall somewhere between LASIK and pacemakers in terms of cost and safety, helping people with disabilities regain their capacity to interact with their physical environment. evolving digital environment. “Beyond that,” he says, “things get really interesting if this technology allows anyone to interact with the digital world better than an ordinary human body. Everything you do to express emotions, express ideas – to communicate what’s going on in your brain through the control of muscles. “Brain-computer interfaces will eventually enable a transmission of information beyond the confines of the human body. And from that perspective, I think the capacity of the human brain will really increase.”