The Informed Brain in a Digital World Interdisciplinary Research Team Summaries (2013) / Chapter Skim
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IDR Team Summary 7: What are the limits of the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) and how can we create reliable systems based on this connection?
IDR Team Summary 7: What are the limits of the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) and how can we create reliable systems based on this connection?
Pages 81-96
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From page 81... ...
BCI enables a wide range of applications that include helping those with impaired physical function, such as stroke victims, control everyday objects in their environment; analyzing awake and sleep brain states to monitor alertness levels and diagnose brain disorders, and understanding market preferences. One of the most dramatic advances in recent years is "mind reading," which uses BCI to decode brain states to reconstruct what a subject is experiencing.
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From page 82... ...
Nishimoto S, Vu AT, Naselaris T, Benjamini Y, Yu B, Gallant JL. Reconstructing visual experiences from brain activity evoked by natural movies.
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From page 83... ...
We also do not understand the relationship between consciousness and subconsciousness. For many of Brain Buddy's proposed products, the team looked for previous research or ongoing experimentation to suggest that a marketable BCI product could one day be possible.
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From page 84... ...
The intense public concern about President Barack Obama's Blackberry in 2008 pales in comparison to the long-term possibility that terrorists could hack into his brain. Control The existence of many of Brain Buddy's devices is predicated on the development of quite a few new engineering techniques, including the ability to handle sensory input and motor output.
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From page 85... ...
This opened up the possibility for the computer to use the data to provide just-in-time feedback. Instead of manually sorting your own data, computer scientists could develop programs that deliver automatic notifications, or even provide unprompted direct brain stimulation.
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From page 86... ...
Brain Buddy Silver As you age, it can be difficult to keep track of upcoming health problems. Brain Buddy Silver would be calibrated to track your body for signs of possible medical issues, catching problems before they became dire.
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From page 87... ...
We don't know if these unpredictable plasticity changes would be a positive or negative. Though the team e nded its discussion feeling optimistic about Brain Buddy's potential, they agreed that many questions must be answered to make BCI technology a reality.
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From page 88... ...
He also emphasized the necessity of direct social interactions for developing healthy emotional responses. The Ultimate Brain-Computer Interface for the Digital World Our team envisioned a closed loop BCI device that assesses a person's environment, her life history and goals and her current brain and body
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From page 89... ...
Non-invasive options for brain stimulation include transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial electrical stimulation. Invasive options include optogenetics and direct microelectrode array stimulators.
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From page 90... ...
The above are examples of how a BCI could use electrical stimulation to direct selective attention. Frontal and parietal cortical areas in the right hemisphere, as well as clusters of brain stem nuclei, have been shown to be important for sustaining attention in certain behavioral tasks.
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From page 91... ...
The BCI can detect oncoming, naturally occurring dips in attention during the performance of the primary task and induce a switch to the secondary task. Therapeutics There are many disorders of attention that can be addressed with the proposed BCI system, including autism, mood disorders, and brain injury.
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From page 92... ...
Pannu, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory • Thomas Serre, Brown University • Kelly Servick, University of California, Santa Cruz • Qi Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology/Emory University • Byron M Yu, Carnegie Mellon University IDR TEAM SUMMARY -- GROUP 7C Kelly Servick, NAKFI Science Writing Scholar University of California, Santa Cruz IDR Team 7C was asked to probe the limits of the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)
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From page 93... ...
The skull is ultimately a powerful insulator of signals, and the only way to record or stimulate precise neurons or neural populations is by opening the skull and interacting directly with brain tissue. However, such a radical procedure has limited potential for use in humans, particularly those not seeking solutions to a severe physical disability.
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From page 94... ...
A process that the group dubbed "brainlogging" could focus on subtle similarities and differences in brain activity to connect users who have parallel emotional responses to the same online experience. Fleshing Out the "Brainlogging" Concept The group envisioned a system that records and stores neural activity while a person navigates the Internet and interacts with digital media.
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From page 95... ...
Envisioning a "Brainlogged" Future Beyond the originally envisioned benefits of neural recording, the team identified other parts of our lives that might be revolutionized in a "brainlogged" environment. Users might reap health benefits from having memory banks to store neural data.
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From page 96... ...
Finally, an application that might resonate in an age of increasing social fragmentation is "bHarmony" -- a romantic matching system based on neural similarities and shared emotional responses. (Perhaps neural logging would offer more personality insight than a series of multiple-choice questions.
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