A group of researchers has invented a mind-reading device which is able to communicate with patients with little to no control of their body.
Diseases like the “locked-in syndrome”, Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis destroy almost all voluntary muscle movement in a patient’s body. It leaves them unable to move, communicate, or even blink an eyelid. It restricts them from communicating in any way, essentially breaking all contact between them and the outside world.
Not only can they not talk to or share their thoughts with anyone else, they can’t even convey their desire to live further or not. This makes it a troubling dilemma for their loved ones. However, thanks to some European researchers, we may have finally found a way to communicate with such patients.
Niels Birbaumer, an Austrian psychologist, and a neuroscientist, has designed a brain-computer interface that measures changes in electrical waves emanating from the brain and also tracks the blood flow using near-infrared spectroscopy. It can fit on a person’s head like a swimming cap and can convey simple responses in the form of a “Yes” or a “No”.
The device was tried on four patients who had lost all voluntary movement in their bodies. For 10 days, they were asked simple statements and facts like “You were born in Berlin” or “Paris is the capital of Germany”. Their responses were recorded and used to refine the machine’s working and altering the blood-flow patterns. They found a 70 percent consistency in the answers.
“In response to the statement “I love to live” three of the four replied yes.”
Feared to be in a fragile emotional state by her parents, the fourth patient wasn’t asked this question. The patients were also asked if they were happy, to which they replied in a “Yes” as well.
Gone are the days when text-based commands written on a black screen with a blinking cursor were the only way we could interact with a computer. Today, there are tons of ways we interact with computers on a daily basis; be it touch or voice on our phones, or even motion on devices like Kinect, Magic Leap, etc.
Mind-reading devices have also been making headlines lately, but this is the first time one has been used so effectively. It shows the huge potential that can be unlocked in this field.
Source— WyssCenter
Diseases like the “locked-in syndrome”, Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis destroy almost all voluntary muscle movement in a patient’s body. It leaves them unable to move, communicate, or even blink an eyelid. It restricts them from communicating in any way, essentially breaking all contact between them and the outside world.
Not only can they not talk to or share their thoughts with anyone else, they can’t even convey their desire to live further or not. This makes it a troubling dilemma for their loved ones. However, thanks to some European researchers, we may have finally found a way to communicate with such patients.
Niels Birbaumer, an Austrian psychologist, and a neuroscientist, has designed a brain-computer interface that measures changes in electrical waves emanating from the brain and also tracks the blood flow using near-infrared spectroscopy. It can fit on a person’s head like a swimming cap and can convey simple responses in the form of a “Yes” or a “No”.
The device was tried on four patients who had lost all voluntary movement in their bodies. For 10 days, they were asked simple statements and facts like “You were born in Berlin” or “Paris is the capital of Germany”. Their responses were recorded and used to refine the machine’s working and altering the blood-flow patterns. They found a 70 percent consistency in the answers.
“In response to the statement “I love to live” three of the four replied yes.”
Feared to be in a fragile emotional state by her parents, the fourth patient wasn’t asked this question. The patients were also asked if they were happy, to which they replied in a “Yes” as well.
Gone are the days when text-based commands written on a black screen with a blinking cursor were the only way we could interact with a computer. Today, there are tons of ways we interact with computers on a daily basis; be it touch or voice on our phones, or even motion on devices like Kinect, Magic Leap, etc.
Mind-reading devices have also been making headlines lately, but this is the first time one has been used so effectively. It shows the huge potential that can be unlocked in this field.
Source— WyssCenter
