The mind-to-movement system that allows a quadriplegic man to control a computerusing only his thoughts is a scientific milestone. It was reached, in large part, through the brain gate s ystem. This system has become a boon to the paralyzed. The Brain Gate System is based on Cyber kinetics platform technology to sense, transmit ,analyze andapplythe language of neurons. The principle of operation behind the Brain Gate System is that with intact brain function, brain signals are generated even though they are not sent to the arms, hands and legs.The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements, offering the user an alternate Brain Gate pathway to control a computer with thought,just as individuals who have the ability to move their hands use a mouse. The 'Brain Gate' contains tiny spikes that will extend down about one millimeter into the brain after being implanted beneath the skull,monitoring the activity from a small group of neurons.It will now be possible for a patient with spinal cord injury to produce brain s ignals that relay the intention of moving the paralyzed limbs,as signals to an implanted sensor,which is then output as electronic impulses. These impulses enable the user to operate mechanical devices with the help of a computer cursor. Matthew Nagle,a 25-year-old Massachusetts man with a s evere spinal cord injury,has been paralyzed from the neck down s ince 2001.After taking part in a clinical trial of this system,he has opened e-mail,switched TV channels,turned on lights.He even moved a robotic hand from his wheelchair. This marks the first time that neural movement signals have been recorded and decoded in a human with spinal cord injury.The system is also the first to allow a human to control his surrounding environment us ing his mind. 2004 An implantable, brain-computer interface the size of an aspirin has been clinically tested on humans by American companyCyberkinetics. The 'BrainGate' device can provide paralysed or motor-impaired patients a mode of communication through the translation of thought into direct computer control. The technology driving this breakthrough in the Brain-Machine-Interface field has a myriad of potential applications, including the development of human augmentation for military and commercial purposes.
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human safety requirements. Five quadriplegics patients in all are enrolled in the pilot study, which
was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Future of Neural-Interfaces
Cyberkinetics has a vision, CEO Tim Surgenor explained to Gizmag, but it is not promising "miracle
cures", or that quadriplegic people will be able to walk again - yet. Their primary goal is to help
restore many activities of daily living that are impossible for paralysed people and to provide a
platform for the development of a wide range of other assistive devices.
"Today quadriplegic people are satisfied if they get a rudimentary connection to the outside world.
What we're trying to give them is a connection that is as good and fast as using their hands. We're
going to teach them to think about moving the cursor using the part of the brain that usually controls
the arms to push keys and create, if you will, a mental device that can input information into a
computer. That is the first application, a kind of prosthetic, if you will. Then it is possible to use the
computer to control a robot arm or their own arm, but that would be down the road."
Existing technology stimulates muscle groups that can make an arm move. The problem Surgenorand his team faced was in creating an input or control signal. With the right control signal they found
they could stimulate the right muscle groups to make arm movement.
"Another application would be for somebody to handle a tricycle or exercise machine to help patients
who have a lot of trouble with their skeletal muscles. But walking, I have to say, would be very
complex. There's a lot of issues with balance and that's not going to be an easy thing to do, but it is
a goal."
Cyberkinetics hopes to refine the BrainGate in the next two years to develop a wireless device that is
completely implantable and doesn't have a plug, making it safer and less visible. And once the
basics of brain mapping are worked out there is potential for a wide variety of further applications,Surgenor explains.
"If you could detect or predict the onset of epilepsy, that would be a huge therapeutic application for
people who have seizures, which leads to the idea of a 'pacemaker for the brain'. So eventually
people may have this technology in their brains and if something starts to go wrong it will take a
therapeutic action. That could be available by 2007 to 2008."
Surgenor also sees a time not too far off where normal humans are interfacing with BrainGate
technology to enhance their relationship with the digital world - if they're willing to be implanted.
"If we can figure out how to make this device cheaper, there might be applications for people to
control machines, write software or perform intensive actions. But that's a good distance away. Right
now the only way to get that level of detail from these signals is to actually have surgery to place this
on the surface of the brain. It's not possible to do this with a non-invasive approach. For example,
you can have an EEG and if you concentrate really hard you can think about and move a cursor on a
screen, but if someone makes a loud noise or you get interrupted, you lose that ability. What we're
trying to make here is a direct connection. The [BrainGate] is going to be right there and you won't
The Brown University group was partially funded by the Defence Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organisation for the US Department of
Defence (DoD). DARPA has been interested in Brain-Machine-Interfaces (BMI) for a number of
years for military applications like wiring fighter pilots directly to their planes to allow autonomousflight from the safety of the ground. Future developments are also envisaged in which humans could
'download' memory implants for skill enhancement, allowing actions to be performed that have not
been learned directly.
Surgenor discounts the near term possibility of this type of 'memory enhancement', however, saying
several critical factors would have to be overcome.
"I don't know about memory but I do think that it will be possible to augment sense. Instantaneous
sensation will be possible. In order to do memory we'd have to figure out how the brain actually
stores that information, which is not well understood at this point.
"You can learn to interpret an electrical stimulation pattern in your ear and turn that into sound. Sothat's a sensation. Some companies are interested in connecting television cameras to the retina of
the eye, and there's other groups - academics, not companies - that are interested in putting a
connector directly to the part of the brain that processes vision. Those are the cortical applications
envisaged at the moment - vision and hearing."
BrainGate™: Turning Thoughts into Action.
The concept of using thought to move a robotic device, a wheelchair, a prosthetic, or a
computer was once strictly the stuff of science fiction, but no longer. BrainGate™ collectsand analyzes the brainwaves of individuals with pronounced physical disabilities, turning
thoughts into actions. The potential to better communicate, interact, and improve people’s
way of life is about to explode.
Years of advanced research by world-renowned experts at prestigious universities—
including Brown, Harvard, Emory, MIT, Columbia, and the University of Utah—has resultedin the development of BrainGate™, a life-changing technology and device that givesrenewed hope to paraplegics, quadriplegics and others suffering from spinal cord injuries
and strokes. Eventually, it has the potential to revolutionize the way all of our brains work.
BrainGate has been featured on broadcasts such as 60 Minutes and in publications includingPopular Mechanics, Nature and Wired.