Steven Edwards
04-03-2006, 10:16 AM
Now That's Using Your Brain (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,70568-0.html?tw=wn_index_5)
Typing an e-mail with your fingers is a snap. But what if you could do it with your brain?
Brain-wave typing could become reality in just a few years. It would open up a world of communication with caregivers and loved ones for people disabled by ALS, cerebral palsy or high-level spinal-cord injuries. With little or no muscle control, communicating clearly, or even at all is difficult, if not impossible.
Researchers in the brain-computer interface, or BCI, Group at New York State Public Health Department's Wadsworth Center are enrolling patients in trials of a system that could enable them to send e-mail and communicate using their brain waves. They hope to have five to 10 people testing the interface by June.
Worldwide, 170,000 people could potentially be helped by such a device, according to a recent study by Arthur D. Little, a consulting company working with product-development group Cambridge Consultants to create a business plan for the technology.
Mark Manasas, a group manager for Cambridge Consultants, describes the setup: A caregiver uses a laptop to start up the system. An electrode-laden skull cap tracks brain activity with an EEG and relays it to an amplifier. Brain waves are then translated into computer activity. The patient has an additional screen to use for communication.
Patients will start with the P300 model, which shows them a matrix of images or letters that flash rapidly in a random sequence. When users focus on the letters or pictures they want to select, a spike occurs in the brain's electrical activity, and after several cycles with the same result, the system selects that letter or image. Communication is slow -- users create two to four words per minute. It's a start.
Typing an e-mail with your fingers is a snap. But what if you could do it with your brain?
Brain-wave typing could become reality in just a few years. It would open up a world of communication with caregivers and loved ones for people disabled by ALS, cerebral palsy or high-level spinal-cord injuries. With little or no muscle control, communicating clearly, or even at all is difficult, if not impossible.
Researchers in the brain-computer interface, or BCI, Group at New York State Public Health Department's Wadsworth Center are enrolling patients in trials of a system that could enable them to send e-mail and communicate using their brain waves. They hope to have five to 10 people testing the interface by June.
Worldwide, 170,000 people could potentially be helped by such a device, according to a recent study by Arthur D. Little, a consulting company working with product-development group Cambridge Consultants to create a business plan for the technology.
Mark Manasas, a group manager for Cambridge Consultants, describes the setup: A caregiver uses a laptop to start up the system. An electrode-laden skull cap tracks brain activity with an EEG and relays it to an amplifier. Brain waves are then translated into computer activity. The patient has an additional screen to use for communication.
Patients will start with the P300 model, which shows them a matrix of images or letters that flash rapidly in a random sequence. When users focus on the letters or pictures they want to select, a spike occurs in the brain's electrical activity, and after several cycles with the same result, the system selects that letter or image. Communication is slow -- users create two to four words per minute. It's a start.