Hitachi's brain-machine interface magic moves train via your brain
What is it that scientists want to accomplish? Do they want to make human race so lethargic that it will be rendered incompetent to even move a toy train without computers' help? Or do they think that our race has already reached that point?
Well, the day, when all our electronic devices will read our brain activity to function according to what our brain wants them to do, is not really that far. Hitachi Inc. has developed a 'brain-machine interface' that controls electronic devices just by our brain activity. Wishful thinking, eh!
Hitachi's brain-machine interface is based on optical topography that sends a small amount of infrared light through the brain's surface to map changes in blood flow. It then analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals, which can then be read by electronic devices.
Demonstration conducted on a small toy train at Hitachi's Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama revealed successful results in which a cap was connected via optical fibers to a mapping device and was also linked to a toy train set via a control computer and motor. Reporter on whom the tests were conducted was asked to do some arithmetical operations and the train actually moved. The results of the above-mentioned demonstration revealed that toy train moved forward on its tracks by demonstrating activity in the brain's frontal cortex that handles problem solving queries.
According to Kei Utsugi - one of the researchers:
Activating that region of the brain - by doing sums or singing a song - is what makes the train run.
Race to develop some thing more groundbreaking:
Brain-machine interface technology has already focused on medical uses, but makers of this interface like Hitachi and Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co are trying their best to outshine each other in a race to conjure some more commercial applications.
Hitachi's scientists are busy, trying to develop a TV remote controller that allows users to turn a TV on and off or to change channels by simply thinking about it. (Can't wait for that to happen.) Honda, too, is not far behind. With its brain-machine interface technology that monitors the brain with an MRI machine used in hospitals, the company is now eager to apply its innovation practically. Where else, in next-gen automobiles.
It is forecasted that these innovations will one day surely replace remote controls and keyboards and in turn, help disabled people to control electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs too, by triggering their mind.
Initial use of this brain-machine interface:
Hitachi has already introduced a device that helps paralyzed patients to communicate with other people in simple words like 'yes' and 'no.' The key advantage of Hitachi's technology is that sensors do not have to enter physically into the brain as earlier technologies developed by U.S. companies like Neural Signals Inc, in which chips are implanted under the skull.
Hurdles:
In developing this technology, size is an important matter. Hitachi has developed a prototype compact headband and a mapping machine that together weigh only about 2 pounds. Another hurdle is the inability of the interface to read signals with a hundred per cent accuracy. Improvements must be made in this direction as well.
To move a toy-train just by thinking is no mean feat, given the fact that the reporter didn't possess any Matilda-like powers. Or did she?
Via: Yahoo
