[NEWS] Paralyzed Man Walks in Brain-Controlled Exoskeleton

Using only his brain signals, a paralyzed French man was able to operate, maneuver, and walk in a whole-body robotic exoskeleton. While the four-limb system isn't ready for clinical applications yet, and will require improvements before that point, researchers call the early results "promising" in a press release.

Some might call them astonishing.

The man, who suffers from tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, moved all four of his paralyzed limbs using his brain. Researchers emphasize the experimental nature of their work.

"Ours' is the first semi-invasive wireless brain-computer system designed for long term use to activate all four limbs," says Alim-Louis Benabid, President of the Clinatec Executive Board, a CEA laboratory, and Professor Emeritus from the University of Grenoble, France, in the press statement. "Previous brain-computer studies have used more invasive recording devices implanted beneath the outermost membrane of the brain, where they eventually stop working. They have also been connected to wires, limited to creating movement in just one limb, or have focused on restoring movement to patients' own muscles."

After an accident in a night club, the French man, identified only as Thibault, 28, from Lyon, suffered a cervical spinal cord injury. One out of every five cervical spinal cord injuries results in having all four of the body's limbs partially or totally paralyzed. After Thibault's accident, he only maintained some movement in his biceps and left wrist. Using his left arm, he was able to operate a wheelchair.

Preparing for his exoskeleton, Thibault had two recording devices implanted, one on either side of his head between the brain and skin. This allowed for the devices to tap into the sensorimotor cortex, which controls sensation and motor function.

The prep work for the exoskeleton took 24 months. During that time, Thibault had to undergo a number of tests. These started with simple mental tasks, training the team's algorithm to understand his thoughts. The tasks included controlling a virtual avatar within a video game similar to the classic Pong. He would then reach for targets within the game, and the exoskeleton would reach with him.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE @https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a29368794/paralyzed-man-walks-brain-controlled-exoskeleton/

Elon Musk Gives Update About His Brain-Computing Interface

by Johnny Vatican

The visionary Elon Musk, more famous as the founder of Tesla and SpaceX but less known as the founder of Neuralink, seems to want our ordinary human brains to one day compete with artificial intelligence (AI) using what’s called a brain-machine interface (BMI).

Attaching implantable BMIs that will make human brains almost as smart as AI algorithms seems to be a long-term goal of Neuralink, a neurotechnology founded by Musk and others in 2017.

What we know is that Neuralink aims to make devices that treat serious brain diseases in the short-term. The eventual goal of Neuralink research, however, is human enhancement, which is sometimes called transhumanism, abbreviated as H+.

H+ is an international philosophical movement championing the transformation of the human condition by developing and making sophisticated technologies widely available to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology. Boosting human brainpower is a way to attain H+.

Musk explained the long-term goal of Neuralink is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence,” which Musk perceives as an existential threat to humanity if left unchecked.

Musk aims to link BMIs that can interface at broadband speed with other types of external software and gadgets. The result will be the next generation of humans, the transhuman.

Neuralink remains highly secretive about its work but public records show it has sought to open an animal testing facility in San Francisco. It’s presently doing research at the University of California Davis.

Musk this week hinted at what might be the development of a BMI that will hook human brains up to computers. He said new information about this eagerly anticipated development will be "coming soon."

Musk said a "direct cortical interface" such as a BMI could allow humans to reach higher levels of cognition and give humans a better shot at competing against AI.

Recent leaks revealed a still unpublished academic paper by five authors employed by or associated with Neuralink. Their study describes a "sewing machine" for the brain in the form of a needle-like device inserted into a rat's skull to implant a bendable polymer electrode in the brain that will read the brain's electrical signals.

Neuralink hasn’t commented on this device, which from its description is a form of BMI

as seen @https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/elon-musk-gives-update-about-his-brain-computing-interface/ar-BBWhlKP

497. beheaded piggies

Every moment is a battle between "right" and "wrong". The optimal and the worst choice. When your ultimate goal is to strip yourself of fear, joy, sadness, agony, eagerness, hope, hate in order to function purely on logic, then... Then this next news-related article will surely fill you with joy, an emotion that under non-carnal cicumstances serves the human condition zero to nothing.

Κάθε στιγμή και μία μάχη ανάμεσα στο "σωστό" και το "λάθος". Το βέλτιστο και το χείριστο. Όταν έχεις σαν υπέρτατο στόχο να απεκδυθείς το φόβο, τη χαρά, τη λύπη, την αγωνία, την προσμονή, την ελπίδα, το μίσος και να λειτουργείς με μόνο γνώμονα τη λογική, ε τότε.. Τότε η παρακάτω είδηση δεν μπορεί παρά να σε γεμίσει με χαρά, ένα συναίσθημα ωστόσο που υπό μη-σαρκικές συνθήκες δεν εξυπηρετεί τίποτα στο ανθρώπινο ζήτημα.

Scientists Partly Restore Activity in Dead-Pig Brains

The brain, supposedly, cannot long survive without blood. Within seconds, oxygen supplies deplete, electrical activity fades, and unconsciousness sets in. If blood flow is not restored, within minutes, neurons start to die in a rapid, irreversible, and ultimately fatal wave.

But maybe not? According to a team of scientists led by Nenad Sestan at Yale School of Medicine, this process might play out over a much longer time frame, and perhaps isn’t as inevitable or irreparable as commonly believed. Sestan and his colleagues showed this in dramatic fashion—by preserving and restoring signs of activity in the isolated brains of pigs that had been decapitated four hours earlier.

The team sourced 32 pig brains from a slaughterhouse, placed them in spherical chambers, and infused them with nutrients and protective chemicals, using pumps that mimicked the beats of a heart. This system, dubbed BrainEx, preserved the overall architecture of the brains, preventing them from degrading. It restored flow in their blood vessels, which once again became sensitive to dilating drugs. It stopped many neurons and other cells from dying, and reinstated their ability to consume sugar and oxygen. Some of these rescued neurons even started to fire. “Everything was surprising,” says Zvonimir Vrselja, who performed most of the experiments along with Stefano Daniele.

There have long been signs that oxygen deprivation doesn’t necessarily kill neurons as quickly as is often assumed. Still, Jimo Borjigin of the University of Michigan says that when she started studying brain activity in dying rats, “my colleagues told me that as soon as oxygen isn’t there, every cell dies within minutes.” Sestan’s team “showed that cells are still intact not just a few minutes later, but a few hours later. This kind of study is long overdue.”

Disembodied brains in jars are a familiar and disquieting science-fiction staple, but in those stories, the brains are alive, conscious, and self-aware. Those in Sestan’s experiments were zero for three. Though individual neurons could fire, there were no signs of the coordinated, brainwide electrical activity that indicates perception, sentience, consciousness, or even life. The team had anesthetics on standby in case any such flickers materialized—and none did. “The pigs were brain-dead when their brains came in the door, and by the end of the experiment, they were still brain-dead,” says Stephen Latham, a Yale University ethicist who advised the team.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE @https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/scientists-partly-restore-activity-dead-pig-brains/587329/

YOU MIGHT ALSO WANT TO WATCH THESE

Neuroreality: The New Reality is Coming. And It’s a Brain Computer Interface.

The Virtual World

With the release of the Oculus Rift in March 2016, the age of virtual reality (VR) truly began. VR tech had been generating buzz since the 1990s, but the Rift was the first high-end VR system to reach the consumer market, and early reviews confirmed that it delivered the kind of experience users had been hoping for.

Virtual reality was finally real.

Research into VR exploded in this new era, and experts soon started to find innovative ways to make virtual experiences more immersive…more real. To date, VR technologies have moved beyond just sight and sound. We’ve developed technologies that let users touch virtual objects, feel changes in wind and temperature, and even taste food in VR.

However, despite all this progress, no one would mistake a virtual environment for the real world. The technology simply isn’t advanced enough, and as long as we rely solely on traditional headsets and other wearables, it never will be.

Before we can create a world that is truly indistinguishable from the real one, we will need to leave the age of virtual reality behind and enter a new era — the era of neuroreality.

Reality 2.0

Neuroreality refers to a reality that is driven by technologies that interface directly with the human brain. While traditional VR depends on a user physically reacting to external stimuli (for example, swinging a controller to wield a virtual sword on a screen) a neuroreality system interfaces directly with the user’s biology through a brain-computer interface (BCI).

Notably, this technology isn’t some far-flung sci-fi vision. It’s very real.

To rehash the basics: BCIs are a means of connecting our brains to machines, and they can be either invasive (requiring an implant of some sort) or non-invasive (relying on electrodes or other external tech to detect and direct brain signals). Experts have predicted that advances in BCIs will lead to a new era in human evolution, as these devices have the potential to revolutionize how we treat diseases, learn, communicate…in short, they are set to utterly transform how we see and interact with the world around us.

In fact, some companies are already innovating in the newly emerging field of neuroreality.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://futurism.com/neuroreality-the-new-reality-is-coming-and-its-a-brain-computer-interface/

Robots that can read your mind a breakthrough for manufacturing

Those who wish others could read their minds will enjoy a breakthrough technology out of the lab of Thenkurussi (Kesh) Kesavadas. The professor of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois and his team have used brain computer interface (BCI) to control a robot (watch demonstration).

In its third year of funding, this National Science Foundation project has proven that human experts can look at an object on an assembly line and through sensors from their brain tell a robot to remove a defective object from a conveyor belt.


PhD student Yao Li demonstrates the technology which uses brain control interface to send signals to a robot.
“The robot is actually monitoring your thinking process,” Kesavadas said. “If the robot realizes you saw something bad, it should go take care of it. That is the fundamental idea in manufacturing we are trying to explore.”
In the virtual reality lab, Kesavadas and PhD student Yao Li have devised a system that runs parts through a conveyer belt; a camera takes pictures of the objects and relays those pictures to a computer screen. The operator, wearing a helmet with sensors, looks at those pictures on the screen. When the operator detects a defective object, the brain generates a certain frequency. That signal is then sent to the robot, which then removes the object from the belt.

The project, funded by the NSF’s National Robotic Initiative, uses a technique called SSVEP (Steady State Visually Evoked Potentials), which takes brain signals that are natural responses to visual stimulation at specific frequencies. When the retina is excited by a visual stimulus ranging from 3.5 Hz to 75 Hz, the brain generates electrical activity at the same (or multiples of) frequency of the visual stimulus. It essentially creates a frequency in the brain that matches the frequency of the object that person is looking.

“The signals from the brain are very similar for everybody and we know which part of the brain gives certain signals,” Kesavadas explained. “Implementing that in the real world is tougher in that through BCI, you have to pick up the signal precisely.”

Kesavadas indicates that in high volume manufacturing, robots can be programmed to detect the defect on their own, but that programming is often time consuming and expensive.

“Currently programming robots takes a significant amount of time and expertise and technicians who are fully trained to use them,” he said. “In high volume manufacturing, the time for programming the robot is well spent. However, if you go into an unstructured environment, not just in manufacturing but even in agriculture or medicine, where the environment keeps changing, you don’t get nearly the return on your investment. Our goal is to take the knowledge and expertise of the operator and communicate that to a robot in certain situations. If we can prove that process is effective, it can save significant time and money.”

Kesavadas has long been at the forefront at bringing virtual reality to medicine and directs the Health Care Engineering Systems Center on the Illinois campus. So while this technology has immediate benefits to manufacturing, he believes it can have an even greater impact on the medical field. For example, a paraplegic could tell a robot to bring a certain object to them simply by sending the right signal.

Kesavadas notes that while the technology exists, it requires a surgeon to place the sensor inside the brain.

“As we devise an external system to become much more consistent and reliable, it will benefit many people,” he said. “Surgically placing the sensors is a more expensive, invasive, and risky process.”

For now, Kesavadas is striving to ignite excitement in manufacturing to realize the technology’s potential. He presented his findings to the NSF in early December.

“Until now, there has been no research in using brain computer interfacing for manufacturing,” Kesavadas said. “Our goal at the onset was to prove these technologies can actually work and that the robots can be used in a more friendly way in manufacturing. We have done that. The next stage is to coordinate with industries that would need this kind of technology and do a demonstration in a real-life environment. We want industry to know the potential of this technology, ignite the thinking process and how they can use the role of brain computer interface as a whole to bring a more competitive edge to the industry.”


AS SEEN @

https://engineeringatil.scienceblog.com/2016/12/22/robots-that-can-read-your-mind-a-breakthrough-for-manufacturing/

Humans can now move complex robot arms just by thinking

Most robotic arm systems required a very complex and very invasive brain implant… until now. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have created a new system that requires only a sexy helmet and a bit of thinking, paving the way to truly mind-controlled robotic tools.

“This is the first time in the world that people can operate a robotic arm to reach and grasp objects in a complex 3D environment using only their thoughts without a brain implant,” said Bin He, biomedical engineering professor and lead researcher on the study. “Just by imagining moving their arms, they were able to move the robotic arm.”

The system requires an EEG helmet and some training. Whereas this sort of technology has been around for a while the researchers have finally perfected the control of complex systems using the motor cortex. When you think about a movement the neurons in the motor cortex react by lighting up new sets of neurons. By sorting and reading these neurons the brain-computer interface can simulate and translate the motion of your real arm into commands for the robot arm.

“This is exciting as all subjects accomplished the tasks using a completely noninvasive technique. We see a big potential for this research to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases to become more independent without a need for surgical implants,” said He.

You can read He’s journal article here.

In previous experiments of this sort a patient who lost both arms in an electrical accident was able to control two robotic arms simultaneously thanks to systems jacked into his nervous system. This new system from He and his team promises to reduce the invasiveness of this sort of robotic control and let anyone control robot arms with their minds.


AS SEEN @

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/16/humans-can-now-move-complex-robot-arms-just-by-thinking/

Five Ways Elon Musk’s Brain-Computer Interface Could Transform the World

Date: 18/05/2017
Source: futurism.com


This technology would take the form of an injectable “neural lace” — composed of a mesh of electrodes — that would augment the human brain, adding another layer to the cortex and limbic system that is capable of communicating with a computer (essentially creating cyborgs). This, hypothetically, creates an upgradable, updatable interface that could be applied in countless ways. Some of these include:

CONTROLLING COMPUTERS WITH YOUR MIND

Brains and technology both operate using the same vectors: electricity and data. Musk’s Neural Lace would be a system that provides a way for them to communicate directly with each other. To borrow a simile from Phillip Alvelda, the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program manager (another nascent BCI), “Today’s best brain-computer interface systems are like two supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem […] Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools.” Applications could stretch from the remote operation of technology to the completely hands free and voiceless operation of computers. Researchers in Korea have already used a BCI to control turtles.

UPDATING YOUR MIND OR COMMUNICATING WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S

Elon Musk’s idea could both initiate brain activity and monitor it. The technology does not necessarily have to be a one-way communication stream, it is capable of both sending messages and creating information in the brain. The high-bandwidth interface could allow you to wirelessly transmit information to the cloud, to computers, or even directly to the brains of other people with a similar interface in their head. There is also the possibility of downloading content to augment your consciousness: think Neo learning kung-fu in the Matrix. While initial tests to improve intelligence haven’t been too successful, if brains and computers speak the same language, then computers can impart information to the brain. The technology is currently being used to allow paralyzed people to communicate, but its uses could extend far beyond that.

BIONIC LIMBS THAT FEEL LIKE REAL LIMBS

As part of this two-way communication stream, robotic arms could communicate fleshy messages by being connected to existing nerve structures. Rather than making the brain learn how to use a new part of the nervous system, robotic limbs could be quickly and easily integrated into the system. This has the potential to revolutionize prosthetic limbs for the disabled, but may also encourage people to rid themselves of their biological arms in favour of mechanical super limbs. Who knows!

EMOTIONALLY AWARE TECHNOLOGY

As computers and brains would essentially be speaking the same language, emotions could be read as data using electrodes. This would shift technology’s perception of humans from basic recognition to complex understanding. Robot helpers would be able to adapt to your emotional state rather than just responding to commands. Photos and videos could also be implanted with emotional metadata, meaning that one could feel what it would be like to be in any given scenario, rather than just trying to imagine it.

NEXT GENERATION ADAPTABLE GAMING

One issue with the lifespan of games is repetition; people become accustomed, know what to expect, or are limited by the programmed narrative. A BCI could improve this situation by having games respond to what your brain is feeling, remaining one step ahead and endlessly diverse. This would be most applicable to the horror genre, in which enemies could come at you when and where you least expect it, providing constant shocks, jumps, and thrills. The Black Mirror episode Playtest is an hour long exploration of just how terrifying this could be. Since AI has been shown to be as creative as a human composer, this reality could be surprisingly close.

As seen @
https://futurism.com/five-ways-elon-musks-brain-computer-interface-could-transform-the-world/

Facebook's Future Goals: Brain, Body Hacks for Speech-Free Communication

Date: 20.04.2017
Source: Sci-tech-today.com

Dugan (pictured above), who is vice president of engineering and head of Facebook's Building 8 hardware lab, described these two ambitious goals during the day two keynote of the developers conference in San Jose. Within a few years, Facebook aims to have created non-invasive, scalable technologies that will let people hear through their skin and convey thoughts directly from their brains at a speed of 100 words per minute, she said.

That's because communication via brain activity could capture not only the words we want to convey, but the semantic meaning and imagery behind those words. "Understanding semantics means that one day you may be able to choose to share your thoughts independent of language," Dugan said. "English, Spanish or Mandarin, they become the same."

"One day maybe not so far away, it may be possible for me to think in Mandarin and for you to feel it instantly in Spanish," Dugan said. "Imagine the power it would give to the 700 million people around the world who cannot read or write but can think and feel."

read the whole article @ http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Facebook-s-Goals--Brain--Body-Hacks/story.xhtml?story_id=100005NLCQLC

Facebook job ads suggest ‘mind reading’ social networks could soon be a reality

DATE: 17/01/2017
RETRIEVED: 21/01/2017
SOURCE: RT


The mysterious Building 8 group was launched last year as a DARPA-style agency to drive innovation in “augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, connectivity and other important breakthrough areas.”

The division is headed by former DARPA director and Google executive Regina Dugan and was given an investment commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars by Zuckerberg.

Several open job postings seeking “slightly impatient” individuals are currently listed for a two year technical project.

A brain-computer interface engineer is sought to work in the area of "neuroimaging" and "electrophysiological data" while another position of neural imaging engineer is seeking professionals to develop non-invasive neural imaging methods.

The project is also seeking a haptics specialist to help the company use touch interactions to build “realistic and immersive” experiences.

In a Q&A last year Zuckerberg described how people would be able to “capture a thought... in its ideal and perfect form in your head and share that with the world.”

“One day, I believe we’ll be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology. You’ll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too if you’d like,” he said.


READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

https://www.rt.com/viral/373691-facebook-mind-reading-jobs/

Banks are using mind reading technology to interview graduates

DATE: 30/12/2016
SOURCE: GLOBAL FUTURIST
VIA: BING


Want to work at a bank? First you have to let them read your mind. No, seriously. And no it’s not some children’s magician who’ll be interviewing you.

At career fairs and on university campuses all around the UK as part of its graduate hiring scheme, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, one of the UK’s largest banking groups, has been strapping Brain Computer Interface (BCI) devices – AKA skull caps – to the heads of potential candidates, to measure their brain activity and attention spans.

While this might sound benign, quirky even, the use of BCI technology in interviews, particularly in light of the fact that companies can now use these devices to pull people’s darkest secrets from their heads, as well as uniquely identify them, should raise a whole host of privacy concerns for regulators, as well as the individuals and companies involved.

If you’re one of these candidates and the data from your brainwaves is being stored with no guarantee that it will be deleted then you might just want to stop and think about the future implications, for example on your credit worthiness. The data points that could be collected during these interviews would provide companies with the perfect profiling tool, and there’s no fooling the system – yet. One day this type of data collection will become the norm, and as for the fact that the system is also being used to classify and categorise candidates, well, that’s a view straight out of a dystopian novel.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE @

http://www.globalfuturist.org/2016/12/banks-are-using-mind-reading-technology-to-interview-graduates/

Virtual race: Competing in Brain Computer Interface at Cybathlon

DATE: 05/12/2016
AUTHOR: LINDA SEWARD
SOURCE: ROBOHUB


This week the world’s first Cybathlon will take place in Zurich, Switzerland. Cybathlon is the brainchild of NCCR Robotics co-director and ETH Zurich professor Robert Riener, and is designed to facilitate discussion between academics, industry and end users of assistive aids, to promote the position of people with disabilities within society and to push development of assistive technology towards solutions that are suitable for use all-day, every day.

In our privileged position as presenting sponsor we are also proud to have NCCR Robotics represented by two teams: In the Brain Computer Interface (BCI) race, by the team EPFL Brain Tweakers, and in the Powered Arm Prosthesis Race, by the team LeMano.

The BCI race is a virtual race, whereby the pilots use BCIs to control an avatar running through a computer game – the pilots may only use their thoughts as no other commands (e.g. head movements) will affect the actions of the avatar. As the Brain Tweakers are a team of researchers representing the Chair in Brain-Machine Interface (CNBI) laboratory led by Prof. José del R. Millán at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne and NCCR Robotics, they jumped at the chance to participate in this race, which plays to their experience and expertise. Indeed, the focus of their research is on the direct use of human brain signals to control devices and interact with the environment around the user.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE @ http://robohub.org/virtual-race-competing-in-brain-computer-interface-at-cybathlon/

No Implants Required: EEG-Based Technology Makes It Possible To Control Robotic Arm With Just Thoughts

DATE: 16/12/2016
AUTHOR: KAYLAN KUMAR
SOURCE: TECH TIMES



It may be recalled that Electroencephalography tests are widely used in detecting epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. As a low-cost noninvasive method of brain monitoring, the EEG involves collection and display of data using wires, devices, electrodes, software and amplifiers.

In the present case, a high-tech EEG cap was pressed into service, which at the scalp is wired by 64 electrodes to convert the subjects' "thoughts" into action.

The trial was successful in almost eight subjects and their success rates in various tasks were recorded.

Wearing the cap, subjects are persuaded to move their hands without really moving them with an aim to control the robotic arm in a three-dimensional (3D) space.

They also had to visualize a virtual cursor on a computer screen for handling the robotic arm and grabbing objects that are stationary over a table.

Gradually, the subjects start moving the robotic arm and start grabbing objects from random locations including the lifting of things from a table just by thinking of those movements. All these movements had a high success rate close to 80 percent.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE @ http://www.techtimes.com/articles/188960/20161216/no-implants-required-eeg-based-technology-makes-it-possible-to-control-robotic-arm-with-just-thoughts.htm