Brain Machine Interface of human

Brain Machine Interface of human

Another new  technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity. Slight changing flow of bloodstream in the brain that translates brain motion in electric signals and analyzes by the brain machine interface.

Hitachi developed brain-machine interface is a technology called optical topography, which sends a small amount of infrared light through the brain’s surface to map out changes in blood flow. This technology is traditionally focused on medical purposes.

Since 2005, Hitachi has sold a device based on optical topography that monitors brain activity in paralyzed patients so they can answer simple questions - for example, by doing mental calculations to indicate “yes” or thinking of nothing in particular to indicate “no.”

An earlier such technology required to implanting a chip under the skull but it’s diffrent, key advantage of Hitachi’s new technology is that only sensors are used & don’t have to physically enter the brain.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007, follows the demonstration by simply take off a head gear that reads brain activity and lets you control everyday objects without lifting a finger. A cap connected by optical fibers to a mapping device, which links, in turn, to a toy train set via a control computer and motor during one recent demonstration at Hitachi’s Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama, just outside Tokyo.

However, the technology is entertaining in itself and could easily be applied to toys. It’s really fun to move a model train just by thinking. Any brain-machine interface device for widespread use would be “a little further down the road and we are thinking of various kinds of applications,” project leader Hideaki Koizumi said. “Locked-in patients can speak to other people by using this kind of brain machine interface”.

Scientists are now set to develop a brain TV remote controller letting users turn a TV on and off or switch channels by only thinking. As well as Honda, whose interface monitors the brain with an MRI machine like those used in hospitals, is keen to apply the interface to intelligent, next-generation automobiles.

The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs. Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles.