Kumaraguru College of Technology

Coimbatore 49

Technical Seminar 2

Brain Computer Interface

Report Submitted by Dhanendran. R 10MCA13 II MCA

BrainComputer interface
Introduction
A braincomputer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brainmachine interface (BMI), is a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device. BCIs are often directed at assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. The field of BCI research and development has since focused primarily on neuroprosthetics applications that aim at restoring damaged hearing, sight and movement. Signals from implanted prostheses can, after adaptation, be handled by the brain like natural sensor or effecter channels.

History
The history of braincomputer interfaces (BCIs) starts with Hans Berger's discovery of the electrical activity of human brain in 1924. By analyzing electrical activity, Berger was able to identify oscillatory activity in the brain, such as the alpha wave (812 Hz), also known as Berger's wave. Berger's first recording device was very rudimentary. He inserted silver wires under the scalp of his patients. Those were replaced by silver foils that were attached to the patients head by rubber bandages later on. Berger connected these sensors to a Lippmann capillary electrometer, with disappointing results. More sophisticated measuring devices such as the Siemens double-coil recording galvanometer, which displayed electric voltages as small as one ten thousandth of a volt, led to success. Research on BCIs began in the 1970s at the University of California. The field of BCI research and development has since focused primarily on neuroprosthetics applications that aim at restoring damaged hearing, sight and movement. Following years of animal experimentation, the first neuroprosthetic devices implanted in humans appeared in the mid-1990s.

BCI versus neuroscience

Neuroscience concerned with neural replacement system. That is, using artificial devices to replace the function of impaired nervous systems and brain related problems or sensory organs. The most widely used neuroscience device is the cochlear implant, which, as of 2006, has been implanted in approximately 100,000 people worldwide. There are also several neuroscience devices that aim to restore vision, including retinal implants.

Fig: Cochlear implant device

The difference between BCIs and neuroscience is mostly how the terms are used: cochlear implant typically connects the nervous system, whereas BCIs usually connect the brain (or nervous system) with a computer system. Practical neuroscience can be linked to any part of the nervous systemfor example, peripheral nerveswhile the term "BCI" usually designates a narrower class of systems which interface with the central nervous system. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Neuroscience and BCIs seek to achieve the same aims, such as restoring sight, hearing, movement, ability to communicate, and even cognitive function. Both use similar experimental methods and surgical techniques.

Animal BCI research

Several laboratories have managed to record signals from monkey and rat cerebral cortices to operate BCIs to carry out movement. Monkeys have navigated computer cursors on screen and commanded robotic arms to perform simple tasks simply by thinking about the task and without any motor output. In May 2008 photographs that showed a monkey operating a robotic arm with its mind at the Pittsburgh University Medical Center were published in a number of well known science journals and magazines. Other research on cats has decoded visual signals.

Research with Monkeys

The operant conditioning studies of Fetz and colleagues first showed that monkeys could learn to control the deflection of a biofeedback meter arm with neural activity. Such work in the 1970s established that monkeys could quickly learn to voluntarily control the firing rates of individual and multiple neurons in the primary motor cortex if they were rewarded for generating appropriate patterns of neural activity. Studies that developed algorithms to reconstruct movements from motor cortex neurons, which control movement, date back to the 1970s. In the 1980s, Apostolos Georgopoulos at Johns Hopkins University found a mathematical relationship between the electrical responses of single motor-cortex neurons in rhesus macaque monkeys and the direction that monkeys moved their arms (based on a cosine function). He also found that dispersed groups of neurons in different areas of the brain collectively controlled motor commands but was only able to record the firings of neurons in one area at a time because of technical limitations imposed by his equipment. There has been rapid development in BCIs since the mid-1990s. Several groups have been able to capture complex brain motor centre signals using recordings from neural ensembles (groups of neurons) and use these to control external devices, including research groups led by Richard Andersen, John Donoghue, Phillip Kennedy, Miguel Nicolelis, and Andrew Schwartz.

Human BCI research

Example: The movie The Matrix.

Those rebels putting on the computer cords at the back of the neck.
The bioport (thats what the technology was called in movie) was a way of giving the Matrix computers full access to the information channels of the brain.

The rebels use the bioport to load new skills into their colleagues' brainswriting directly into
permanent memory.

3 Types: 1. Invasive BCSs 2. Partially Invasive BCIs 3. Non-Invasive BCIs

1. Invasive BCIs
Invasive BCI research has targeted repairing damaged sight and providing new functionality to persons with paralysis. Invasive BCIs are implanted directly into the grey matter of the brain during neurosurgery. As they rest in the grey matter, invasive devices produce the highest quality signals of BCI devices but are prone to scar-tissue build-up, causing the signal to become weaker or even lost as the body reacts to a foreign object in the brain. In vision science, direct brain implants have been used to treat non-inherited (acquired) blindness. One of the first scientists to come up with a working brain interface to restore sight was private researcher William Dobelle. Dobelle's first prototype was implanted into "Jerry", a man blinded in adulthood, in 1978. A single-array BCI containing 68 electrodes was implanted onto Jerrys visual cortex and succeeded in producing phosphenes, the sensation of seeing light. The system included cameras mounted on glasses to send signals to the implant. Initially, the implant allowed Jerry to see shades of grey in a limited field of vision at a low frame-rate. This also required him to be hooked up to a two-ton mainframe, but shrinking electronics and faster computers made his artificial eye more portable and now enable him to perform simple tasks unassisted.

2. Partially invasive BCIs

Partially invasive BCI devices are implanted inside the skull but rest outside the brain rather than within the grey matter. They produce better resolution signals than non-invasive BCIs where the bone tissue of the cranium deflects and deforms signals and have a lower risk of forming scar-tissue in the brain than fully invasive BCIs. Electrocorticography (ECoG) measures the electrical activity of the brain taken from under the skull in a similar way to non-invasive electroencephalography , but the electrodes are embedded in a thin plastic pad that is placed above the cortex, under the dura mater. ECoG technologies were first trialed in humans in 2004 by Eric Leuthardt and Daniel Moran from Washington University in St Louis. In a later trial, the researchers enabled a teenage boy to play Space Invaders using his ECoG implant. This research indicates that control is rapid, requires minimal training, and may be an ideal tradeoff with regards to signal fidelity and level of invasiveness.

3. Non-invasive BCIs
As well as invasive experiments, there have also been experiments in humans using noninvasive neuroimaging technologies as interfaces. Signals recorded in this way have been used to power muscle implants and restore partial movement in an experimental volunteer. Although they are easy to wear, non-invasive implants produce poor signal resolution because the skull dampens signals, dispersing and blurring the electromagnetic waves created by the neurons. Although the waves can still be detected it is more difficult to determine the area of the brain that created them or the actions of individual neurons. EEG MRI EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is the most studied potential non-invasive interface, mainly due to its fine temporal resolution, ease of use, portability and low set-up cost. But as well as the technology's susceptibility to noise, another substantial barrier to using EEG as a braincomputer interface is the extensive training required before users can work the technology.

 MRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used successfully as non-invasive BCIs. In a widely reported experiment, fMRI allowed two users being scanned to play Pong in real-time by altering their haemodynamic response or brain blood flow through biofeedback techniques. fMRI measurements of brain wave responses in real time have also been used to control robot arms with a seven second delay between thought and movement.

Cell-culture BCIs
Researchers have built devices to interface with neural cells and entire neural networks in cultures outside animals. As well as furthering research on animal implantable devices, experiments on cultured neural tissue have focused on building problem-solving networks, constructing basic computers and manipulating robotic devices. Research into techniques for stimulating and recording from individual neurons grown on semiconductor chips is sometimes referred to as neuroelectronics or neurochips.

Ethical considerations
Obtaining informed consent from people who have difficulty communicating, Risk/benefit analysis, Shared responsibility of BCI teams (e.g. how to ensure that responsible group decisions can be made), The consequences of BCI technology for the quality of life of patients and their families, Side-effects (e.g. neurofeedback of sensorimotor rhythm training is reported to affect sleep quality), Personal responsibility and its possible constraints (e.g. who is responsible for erroneous actions with a neuroprosthesis), Issues concerning personality and personhood and its possible alteration, Therapeutic applications and their possible exceedance, Questions of research ethics that arise when progressing from animal experimentation to application in human subjects, Mind-reading and privacy, Mind-control, Use of the technology in advanced interrogation techniques by governmental authorities, Selective enhancement and social stratification, and Communication to the media.

References
1. www. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braincomputer_interface 2. www.braincomputerinterface.com/ 3. future.wikia.com/wiki/Brain_Computer_Interface