Neural Interfaces: From Photo Paper to Neural Dust
A person interacts with the outside world with the help of muscles (speech, fingers, gestures, etc.). Neurointerface allows you to edit to interact with the world without muscle activity. The first step to the "brain in the bank." And to cracking the brain.
In the film “Chappy”, the robot copied the mind (both human and human) with the help of an EEG helmet, while DARPA taught the paralyzed woman not only to eat chocolates, but also to control the fifth generation F-35 fighter-bomber. On the simulator.
Send audio and video signal directly to the brain have learned a few decades ago. Now, in the MSUsecret laboratories, people are taught not only to type the text with “thought” (13–15 characters per minute), but also to install the hidden interface “subconscious-computer”, and there are amateur devices for free from 10,000 rubles ( NeuroSky , in free access in Hakspeys) and quite professional for 200,000 rubles ( BioRadio , I'm in St. Petersburg test)
')
About how we sunk to such a life (about the history of EEG and neural interfaces), it will be discussed under the cut. (And also about the first attempts to use neural interfaces for information security).
While writing this post, I realized that Ghost in the shell (the entire series, including manga) is the most visible and most hard-sins-fiction forecast of the near future. There are both hacking ocular prostheses (including visual stream spoofing), and hacking of a cyber brain, and falsifying memories.
Over the past 10 years, just an avalanche of discoveries - look in dreams, talk to people in a coma, control the mouse's brain with a laser, transmit a signal from the brain to the brain via the Internet (1 pixel), control the finger of another person using the thought through the Internet, create a channel computer communication-subconscious, using the human brain as a peripheral sensor for the perimeter security system, created a brain-controlled exoskeleton for the paralyzed, etc. And how did it all begin?
1875 : Richard Cato discovered the presence of electrical signals on the surface of the brain of animals
1924 : Hans Berger managed to record with a galvanometer on paper in the form of a curve electrical signals from the surface of the head (and not directly from the brain itself, as before) generated by the brain.
1929 : Hans Berger published the first work describing experiments with human EEG
Alpha waves of brain activity, having a frequency of 8-12 Hz, are called the Berger waves. Conducted research on the electrical activity of the brain (primarily on the parameters of the amplitude) in various conditions: in a calm state, when solving problems, with anesthesia. In his book Psyche (Jena, 1940) he addressed the solution of the problem of extrasensory perception, examining the possibilities of the electric microwave model for explaining this phenomenon and pointing out its insufficiency.
1932: German engineer Jan Friedrich Toennies designed the first EEG recording machine that prints ink on plain paper. (Before that there was photo paper)
1940s : Wilder Penfield used information from hundreds of brain operations to create functional maps of the cortex (surface) of the brain. He summarized the results of the mapping of the main motor and sensory areas of the cortex and for the first time accurately mapped the cortical areas related to speech. Using the method of electrical stimulation of individual parts of the brain, Penfield determined the exact representation in the cerebral cortex of various muscles and organs of the human body. It is schematically depicted as a “homunculus” (little man), whose parts of the body are proportional to the areas of the brain in which they are represented. Therefore, the fingers, lips, and tongue with a large number of nerve endings are depicted larger than the body and legs.
1950s : José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado , professor of physiology at Yale University, invented "Stimoceiver" - a scientist developed a radio-powered stereosiver with the size of a fifty-fifty-cent coin that could be implanted entirely and controlled via the FM radio channel
The most spectacular experiment Delgado was conducted in 1963 at a ranch in the province of Cordoba, Spain. Having implanted the steamer in the brain of several "fighting" bulls, he was able to control all their movements with the help of a portable transmitter. An amazing photograph has been preserved, capturing how Delgado made the attacking bull stop dead as if only a few feet away, turning on the stimulation of the caudate nucleus.
However, according to the scientist, his experiment with the chimpanzee paddy deserves much more attention. The animal was implanted with a stereosiver programmed to receive distinct signals, called spindles, that spontaneously arise in the amygdala. As soon as the device picked up the spindle, it stimulated the area of ​​the central gray matter in Paddy's brain, causing an “obverse” reaction, that is, a painful or unpleasant sensation. After two hours of such exposure, the monkey's tonsil gave out 50% fewer spindles, in six days the frequency of their occurrence fell by 99%. This is not to say that Paddy benefited: she became “calmer, less attentive and less motivated when testing her behavior,” Delgado wrote. However, he suggested that such a technique of " automated learning " could be used to suppress epileptic seizures, panic attacks, or in the treatment of other diseases accompanied by the appearance of characteristic signals in the brain.
The female macaque (the leftmost one in the first photo) quickly realized that with the help of a lever one can calm one's neighbor in the cage, the cocky dominant male. The lever sent a signal to the stereo receiver in his brain, and the anger passed. The extreme right on the left photo is a peaceful male. In another photo, he again became aggressive. In the early 60s. Delgado conducted many such studies, studying the effects of brain stimulation on social relationships.
1960-e : Gray Walter (inventor of the bug turtle), who discovered the delta and theta rhythms of the brain, connected the electrodes to the brain and made the patient move his finger. He invented the toposcope.
1960: Elwood Henneman and his colleagues discovered that a smaller electrical signal is required to “activate” motor neurons of the smallest diameter than neurons with a larger diameter. The more neurons recruited by the brain to perform an action, the more effort a muscle can make.
1960s : Neil Miller in the early 60s, following the tracks of experiments, James Olds (1956) taught rats to give themselves electrical stimulation to the pleasure center, changing the parameters of any vegetative function (peristalsis, heart rhythm) and even EEG parameters that “connected” with stimulant. a rat, if brought to this point, is able to control the pressure of blood in the tail artery. To do this, you just need to attach a pressure sensor to its tail and give food when the pressure exceeds a certain value. Hunger is a powerful incentive for the rat brain to learn how to manage such a vital indicator that it does not have to control in ordinary life.
1967 psychiatrist Edmond Devan (Edmond M. Dewan) published an article in the journal Nature about an experiment, the participants of which were asked to focus on certain symbols of Morse code. While they were doing this, their EEG electrical activity was recorded by an EEG. In moments of concentration on symbols, the electroencephalogram changed. After a small workout, the subjects were able to transmit whole words using Morse code to the equipment. It was not clear which neurons and brain waves were involved in the experiment, but it worked - the person was able to send his idea to the machine for the first time and be understood by it.
1968 : Joe Kamiya demonstrated that a person can regulate the rhythms of his brain — strengthen and weaken the alpha rhythm. (Psychology Today, 1968, 1, 56-60.)
1968 Barry Sterman discovered the SMR rhythm at 12-15 Hz in the sensorimotor cortex. Rhythm is associated with calmness in the body, a willingness to perform motor actions, with increased concentration of attention to the outside world, and improved memory performance.
The first experiments were conducted on cats. Cats were trained to increase the amplitude of brain waves in the range of 12-15 Hz. Later, the scientist received an NASA order to study the effects of the rocket oxidizer toxin (hydrazine) on animals. In a group of 50 cats, ten trained on the SMR amplitude. To his surprise, cats with increased SMR showed toxin resistance. Cats with normal SMR levels died from exposure to the substance.
In the 70s, Sterman offered to train SMR to treat epilepsy. His employee Margaret (Margarte Fairbanks), suffered from epilepsy attacks, because of which she could not get a driver's license. She decided to try out early trainings only on animals. Of course, not immediately, but the symptoms of the disease began to recede. When the course has been completed. She got a driver's license. Subsequently, other scientists also received positive results. "
At the same time, Eberhard Fetz (Eberhard Fetz) forced the monkey to get his food by changing the activity of a single neuron of the cerebral cortex. He linked the activity of the first neuron that hit the electrode to the juice supply, and the monkey brain learned how to arbitrarily turn on this neuron.
1972: Cochlear implant marketed. A device that converts sound into an electrical signal that goes to the auditory nerve, and the brain learns to recognize these electrical signals as sound. Approximately 25,000 people now use similar implants.
A cochlear implant is a microphone with a transmitter that, at radio frequencies, transmits sound signals to the inside of a device installed in the cochlea, that is, the implant itself. The sound signal at the same time turns into electrical impulses that are transmitted to the auditory neurons and sent further to the cerebral cortex.
1973: Jacques Vidal first used the term “brain-computer interface” in the article Toward Direct Brain-Computer Communication [pdf] . The same scientist formulated two fundamental questions:
1978 : The first implant that provides a video channel directly into the visual cortex. (Video camera-computer-brain)
It consists of a b / w video camera (292 x 512-pixel CCD, 69 ° angle of view), an ultrasonic rangefinder, an intracranial implant (68 platinum electrodes in the visual cortex), and a computer (5 kg).
William Dobelle implanted a visual prosthesis to a 62 year old patient. The implant produces a black-and-white image of the “phosphenes” of the visual cortex, similar to the images projected on the bulbs of the stadium scoreboards.
During stimulation, each electrode produces 1–4 closely spaced phosphenes. Each phosphene in a cluster perceives a region with a diameter of a pencil located at arm's length. The work group of Dr. Dobelle determined that in such a case the patient's phosphene map covers an area about 20 cm high and 7.5 cm wide.
Patient system, device diagram and electrode scheme
Dr. Dobelle's system provides poor near-center tunnel vision. The picture that the patient sees is black and white with a defect in the scattered field (caused by gaps between the phosphenes); depth perception is absent.
Thanks to the ultrasonic rangefinder, it was possible to transfer additional information to the patient (modulation of the image brightness, blinking frequency, and the feature of individual phosphenes)
The frame refresh rate is from 1 to 5 per second. The operation is already carried out commercially and is estimated at about $ 120K. This technology makes it possible to return sight only to people who have lost it as a result of accidents - that is, those who already “knew how to see” before.
Read more in English “Artificial Vision for the Blind by Connecting a Television Camera to the Visual Cortex”
1988 : “Virtual Keyboard” by Farvela and Donchin. Thanks to this method, people can type text, mentally choosing the right letter at the intersection of character strings and rows.
It is an event of a related brain potentials.
1998: Researcher Phillip Kennedy implanted the first BCI (human-computer interface) into a patient, Johnny Ray, who lost mobility after a stroke. As a result of implantation, Ray learned to move the cursor.
2004: 25-year-old Matthew Nagle Using an implanted device, he was able to control the cursor on the screen, read e-mail, play simple video games and even draw something. He also learned to switch channels and TV volume and move an electromechanical hand
a) The matrix of electrodes on a one-cent coin and a plug inserted into the skull. b) Array of one hundred electrodes. c) Array location. d) First patient with an established interface (Leigh R. Hochberg, Mijail D. Serruya, Gerhard M. Friehs, Jon A. Mukand, Maryam Saleh, Abraham H. Caplan, Almut Branner, David Chen, Richard D. Penn, John P. Donoghue, 2006)
2008: First commercial / consumer neural interface in the market
Then it started (the number of articles on the brain-computer interface)
Interestingly, there are ECG-based authentication methods and EEG-based mind passport
ECG
Bionym is a Canadian company developing a unique biometric authentication system. The main project of the company is Nymi, a bracelet with a heart rate sensor, designed for three-factor authentication.
The Verge article in English (2013)
EEG
Mind passport
Users will be enough to think about some things, and the system will automatically let them into the program or service.
Brain waves are unique to each person, so even if someone knew your “passthought”, then their signal will still be different. After a series of tests, the experiment participants completed seven different mental tasks with the device. The simplest actions, such as focusing on breathing or on some thought, for ten seconds, helped easily carry out successful authentication in a computer system. The main thing here is to find a task that would not strain users so that they can perform it several times a day. For example, count items of a certain color or sing a song to yourself.
Article in Wired (2013)
A scientific article from Berkeley " I Think, therefore I Am: Usability and Security of Authentication Using Brainwaves "
The idea was first proposed in 2007 in the article Person Authentication using Brainwaves (EEG) and Maximum A Posteriori Model Adaptation
WIRED in 2009 puzzled by this question. The Next Hacking Frontier: Your Brain?
There are also Russian developments: Identification of users on the basis of electroencephalography using technologies “Brain – Computer Interface”
Secret Leak Channel - Your Brain
On-The-Side Attacks with Brain-Computer Interfaces
Publication
WIRED article
Bruce Schneier's reaction : "This is a new development in spyware."
A little about the "brain fingerprints" including to catch terrorists
NeuroSky $ 100 (available in Moscow Hackspace and on sale in Russian online stores)
OpenBCI $ 200 (order from America / Europe)
Bioradio 200-300 thousand rubles (available in St. Petersburg, sometimes arriving at exhibitions in Moscow)
Bioradio
BioRadio is a device that can be used in neuroscience / marketing / economics / ethics, usability laboratories, for controlling robots / cars / spiders / helicopters, for medical research and diagnostics. For the price of a 3d printer. The size of a cassette player.
This thing is a full-fledged psychophysiological laboratory that allows you to control roboruki (both with signals from EEG and myogram), to track heart rate, plethysmogram (change in lung volume), skin resistance, and so on.
The main feature of Bioradio is that it fits in my palm
while the complete set of MGUnogo EEG , with which I experimented, is placed in the trunk of a car.
There is a BioRadio API
Now, 2 technologies are on the way - neural dust and tattoo.
Neural dust
A group from the University of California at Berkeley proposed a way to reduce the size of implantable elements to a few micrometers and literally fill them with the choroid.
Device particles "neuropiles"
The ultraminiature electronic sensors developed by them consist of a chip made of CMOS technology, a piezocrystal, electrodes, and an insulating polymer shell. The principle of their operation resembles the practice of using radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that do not require an integrated power source.
According to the authors, the particles of neuropyles circulate freely in the bloodstream. Practically, this is difficult to achieve due to the complex composition of the blood, the biological mechanisms of its purification and the structure of the endothelium, but imagine for a moment that these problems have been solved. Then the simultaneous number of microsensors in the vessels of the brain at any given time can amount to thousands.
Each of these “smart particles” will be able to measure the electrical activity of nearby neurons. During the first phase, the piezoelectric crystal converts the ultrasonic waves from the intermediate module into electrical signals and feeds the CMOS circuit. During the second, it acts the opposite - it vibrates under the influence of the action potentials of the nearest group of neurons.
Piezoelectric effect in the particle "neyropoly"
Compared to RFID, the proposed scheme has at least two important differences. In addition to electromagnetic waves (external level), ultrasound (internal level) is used, and an intermediate module provides amplification of the response signal of microsensors, its conversion and further transmission.
The latter is located under the dura mater and acts as a transceiver, allowing you to avoid strong attenuation of ultrasound and overcome the shielding effect of the bones of the skull.
As applied to the brain-computer interfaces in the first approximation, this is equivalent to increasing the accuracy of determining a mental command tenfold.
More on Computerra or article
Flexible smart "tattoo"
For the first time, scientists from the University of California at San Diego presented this invention to the world in 2011.
Components are located on an area of ​​1x2 cm. Transistors, antenna, coils, temperature sensors, photodetectors, EEG, ECG and EMG sensors. Connecting contacts of silicon and gallium arsenide.
Article
This high-tech “sandwich” has a thickness of 40 microns, and for fasteners, a substrate made of polyester is used - which is also used on transfer tattoos for children.
Currently, a tattoo sensor is able to continuously collect data for 6 hours and is on the body for up to one day, with the main task of researchers now is to increase these figures. At the same time, it is worth noting that, in spite of the ready-made solution, the release date of this device for general use is not announced yet.
In the meantime, marketing and hackers were engaged in neural interfaces (at the 31C3 congress in 2014, there was a report on work towards hacking BCI):
PS Probably in the future antiviruses will be treated much more attentively.
In the film “Chappy”, the robot copied the mind (both human and human) with the help of an EEG helmet, while DARPA taught the paralyzed woman not only to eat chocolates, but also to control the fifth generation F-35 fighter-bomber. On the simulator.
Send audio and video signal directly to the brain have learned a few decades ago. Now, in the MSU
')
About how we sunk to such a life (about the history of EEG and neural interfaces), it will be discussed under the cut. (And also about the first attempts to use neural interfaces for information security).
While writing this post, I realized that Ghost in the shell (the entire series, including manga) is the most visible and most hard-sins-fiction forecast of the near future. There are both hacking ocular prostheses (including visual stream spoofing), and hacking of a cyber brain, and falsifying memories.
Over the past 10 years, just an avalanche of discoveries - look in dreams, talk to people in a coma, control the mouse's brain with a laser, transmit a signal from the brain to the brain via the Internet (1 pixel), control the finger of another person using the thought through the Internet, create a channel computer communication-subconscious, using the human brain as a peripheral sensor for the perimeter security system, created a brain-controlled exoskeleton for the paralyzed, etc. And how did it all begin?
1875 : Richard Cato discovered the presence of electrical signals on the surface of the brain of animals
1924 : Hans Berger managed to record with a galvanometer on paper in the form of a curve electrical signals from the surface of the head (and not directly from the brain itself, as before) generated by the brain.1929 : Hans Berger published the first work describing experiments with human EEG
Alpha waves of brain activity, having a frequency of 8-12 Hz, are called the Berger waves. Conducted research on the electrical activity of the brain (primarily on the parameters of the amplitude) in various conditions: in a calm state, when solving problems, with anesthesia. In his book Psyche (Jena, 1940) he addressed the solution of the problem of extrasensory perception, examining the possibilities of the electric microwave model for explaining this phenomenon and pointing out its insufficiency.
1932: German engineer Jan Friedrich Toennies designed the first EEG recording machine that prints ink on plain paper. (Before that there was photo paper)
1940s : Wilder Penfield used information from hundreds of brain operations to create functional maps of the cortex (surface) of the brain. He summarized the results of the mapping of the main motor and sensory areas of the cortex and for the first time accurately mapped the cortical areas related to speech. Using the method of electrical stimulation of individual parts of the brain, Penfield determined the exact representation in the cerebral cortex of various muscles and organs of the human body. It is schematically depicted as a “homunculus” (little man), whose parts of the body are proportional to the areas of the brain in which they are represented. Therefore, the fingers, lips, and tongue with a large number of nerve endings are depicted larger than the body and legs.1950s : José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado , professor of physiology at Yale University, invented "Stimoceiver" - a scientist developed a radio-powered stereosiver with the size of a fifty-fifty-cent coin that could be implanted entirely and controlled via the FM radio channel
The most spectacular experiment Delgado was conducted in 1963 at a ranch in the province of Cordoba, Spain. Having implanted the steamer in the brain of several "fighting" bulls, he was able to control all their movements with the help of a portable transmitter. An amazing photograph has been preserved, capturing how Delgado made the attacking bull stop dead as if only a few feet away, turning on the stimulation of the caudate nucleus.
Bull video
However, according to the scientist, his experiment with the chimpanzee paddy deserves much more attention. The animal was implanted with a stereosiver programmed to receive distinct signals, called spindles, that spontaneously arise in the amygdala. As soon as the device picked up the spindle, it stimulated the area of ​​the central gray matter in Paddy's brain, causing an “obverse” reaction, that is, a painful or unpleasant sensation. After two hours of such exposure, the monkey's tonsil gave out 50% fewer spindles, in six days the frequency of their occurrence fell by 99%. This is not to say that Paddy benefited: she became “calmer, less attentive and less motivated when testing her behavior,” Delgado wrote. However, he suggested that such a technique of " automated learning " could be used to suppress epileptic seizures, panic attacks, or in the treatment of other diseases accompanied by the appearance of characteristic signals in the brain.The female macaque (the leftmost one in the first photo) quickly realized that with the help of a lever one can calm one's neighbor in the cage, the cocky dominant male. The lever sent a signal to the stereo receiver in his brain, and the anger passed. The extreme right on the left photo is a peaceful male. In another photo, he again became aggressive. In the early 60s. Delgado conducted many such studies, studying the effects of brain stimulation on social relationships.
1960-e : Gray Walter (inventor of the bug turtle), who discovered the delta and theta rhythms of the brain, connected the electrodes to the brain and made the patient move his finger. He invented the toposcope.
1960: Elwood Henneman and his colleagues discovered that a smaller electrical signal is required to “activate” motor neurons of the smallest diameter than neurons with a larger diameter. The more neurons recruited by the brain to perform an action, the more effort a muscle can make.
1960s : Neil Miller in the early 60s, following the tracks of experiments, James Olds (1956) taught rats to give themselves electrical stimulation to the pleasure center, changing the parameters of any vegetative function (peristalsis, heart rhythm) and even EEG parameters that “connected” with stimulant. a rat, if brought to this point, is able to control the pressure of blood in the tail artery. To do this, you just need to attach a pressure sensor to its tail and give food when the pressure exceeds a certain value. Hunger is a powerful incentive for the rat brain to learn how to manage such a vital indicator that it does not have to control in ordinary life.
Not exactly about blood pressure, but about hungry mice
1967 psychiatrist Edmond Devan (Edmond M. Dewan) published an article in the journal Nature about an experiment, the participants of which were asked to focus on certain symbols of Morse code. While they were doing this, their EEG electrical activity was recorded by an EEG. In moments of concentration on symbols, the electroencephalogram changed. After a small workout, the subjects were able to transmit whole words using Morse code to the equipment. It was not clear which neurons and brain waves were involved in the experiment, but it worked - the person was able to send his idea to the machine for the first time and be understood by it.
1968 : Joe Kamiya demonstrated that a person can regulate the rhythms of his brain — strengthen and weaken the alpha rhythm. (Psychology Today, 1968, 1, 56-60.)
1968 Barry Sterman discovered the SMR rhythm at 12-15 Hz in the sensorimotor cortex. Rhythm is associated with calmness in the body, a willingness to perform motor actions, with increased concentration of attention to the outside world, and improved memory performance.The first experiments were conducted on cats. Cats were trained to increase the amplitude of brain waves in the range of 12-15 Hz. Later, the scientist received an NASA order to study the effects of the rocket oxidizer toxin (hydrazine) on animals. In a group of 50 cats, ten trained on the SMR amplitude. To his surprise, cats with increased SMR showed toxin resistance. Cats with normal SMR levels died from exposure to the substance.
In the 70s, Sterman offered to train SMR to treat epilepsy. His employee Margaret (Margarte Fairbanks), suffered from epilepsy attacks, because of which she could not get a driver's license. She decided to try out early trainings only on animals. Of course, not immediately, but the symptoms of the disease began to recede. When the course has been completed. She got a driver's license. Subsequently, other scientists also received positive results. "
At the same time, Eberhard Fetz (Eberhard Fetz) forced the monkey to get his food by changing the activity of a single neuron of the cerebral cortex. He linked the activity of the first neuron that hit the electrode to the juice supply, and the monkey brain learned how to arbitrarily turn on this neuron.
1972: Cochlear implant marketed. A device that converts sound into an electrical signal that goes to the auditory nerve, and the brain learns to recognize these electrical signals as sound. Approximately 25,000 people now use similar implants.A cochlear implant is a microphone with a transmitter that, at radio frequencies, transmits sound signals to the inside of a device installed in the cochlea, that is, the implant itself. The sound signal at the same time turns into electrical impulses that are transmitted to the auditory neurons and sent further to the cerebral cortex.
1973: Jacques Vidal first used the term “brain-computer interface” in the article Toward Direct Brain-Computer Communication [pdf] . The same scientist formulated two fundamental questions:- Is it possible to use data on the electrical activity of the brain as a carrier of information when a person communicates with a computer?
- Can they be used to control various mechanisms - from a prosthesis to a spacecraft?
1978 : The first implant that provides a video channel directly into the visual cortex. (Video camera-computer-brain)It consists of a b / w video camera (292 x 512-pixel CCD, 69 ° angle of view), an ultrasonic rangefinder, an intracranial implant (68 platinum electrodes in the visual cortex), and a computer (5 kg).
William Dobelle implanted a visual prosthesis to a 62 year old patient. The implant produces a black-and-white image of the “phosphenes” of the visual cortex, similar to the images projected on the bulbs of the stadium scoreboards.
During stimulation, each electrode produces 1–4 closely spaced phosphenes. Each phosphene in a cluster perceives a region with a diameter of a pencil located at arm's length. The work group of Dr. Dobelle determined that in such a case the patient's phosphene map covers an area about 20 cm high and 7.5 cm wide.
Patient system, device diagram and electrode scheme
Dr. Dobelle's system provides poor near-center tunnel vision. The picture that the patient sees is black and white with a defect in the scattered field (caused by gaps between the phosphenes); depth perception is absent.
Thanks to the ultrasonic rangefinder, it was possible to transfer additional information to the patient (modulation of the image brightness, blinking frequency, and the feature of individual phosphenes)
The frame refresh rate is from 1 to 5 per second. The operation is already carried out commercially and is estimated at about $ 120K. This technology makes it possible to return sight only to people who have lost it as a result of accidents - that is, those who already “knew how to see” before.
Read more in English “Artificial Vision for the Blind by Connecting a Television Camera to the Visual Cortex”
1988 : “Virtual Keyboard” by Farvela and Donchin. Thanks to this method, people can type text, mentally choosing the right letter at the intersection of character strings and rows.
It is an event of a related brain potentials.
1998: Researcher Phillip Kennedy implanted the first BCI (human-computer interface) into a patient, Johnny Ray, who lost mobility after a stroke. As a result of implantation, Ray learned to move the cursor.
2004: 25-year-old Matthew Nagle Using an implanted device, he was able to control the cursor on the screen, read e-mail, play simple video games and even draw something. He also learned to switch channels and TV volume and move an electromechanical handa) The matrix of electrodes on a one-cent coin and a plug inserted into the skull. b) Array of one hundred electrodes. c) Array location. d) First patient with an established interface (Leigh R. Hochberg, Mijail D. Serruya, Gerhard M. Friehs, Jon A. Mukand, Maryam Saleh, Abraham H. Caplan, Almut Branner, David Chen, Richard D. Penn, John P. Donoghue, 2006)
2008: First commercial / consumer neural interface in the market
Then it started (the number of articles on the brain-computer interface)
Interestingly, there are ECG-based authentication methods and EEG-based mind passport
Heart and brain as documents
ECG
Bionym is a Canadian company developing a unique biometric authentication system. The main project of the company is Nymi, a bracelet with a heart rate sensor, designed for three-factor authentication.
The Verge article in English (2013)
EEG
Mind passport
Users will be enough to think about some things, and the system will automatically let them into the program or service.
Brain waves are unique to each person, so even if someone knew your “passthought”, then their signal will still be different. After a series of tests, the experiment participants completed seven different mental tasks with the device. The simplest actions, such as focusing on breathing or on some thought, for ten seconds, helped easily carry out successful authentication in a computer system. The main thing here is to find a task that would not strain users so that they can perform it several times a day. For example, count items of a certain color or sing a song to yourself.
Article in Wired (2013)
A scientific article from Berkeley " I Think, therefore I Am: Usability and Security of Authentication Using Brainwaves "
The idea was first proposed in 2007 in the article Person Authentication using Brainwaves (EEG) and Maximum A Posteriori Model Adaptation
WIRED in 2009 puzzled by this question. The Next Hacking Frontier: Your Brain?
There are also Russian developments: Identification of users on the basis of electroencephalography using technologies “Brain – Computer Interface”
Secret Leak Channel - Your Brain
On-The-Side Attacks with Brain-Computer Interfaces
Publication
WIRED article
Bruce Schneier's reaction : "This is a new development in spyware."
A little about the "brain fingerprints" including to catch terrorists
How can develop now?
NeuroSky $ 100 (available in Moscow Hackspace and on sale in Russian online stores)
OpenBCI $ 200 (order from America / Europe)
Bioradio 200-300 thousand rubles (available in St. Petersburg, sometimes arriving at exhibitions in Moscow)
Bioradio
BioRadio is a device that can be used in neuroscience / marketing / economics / ethics, usability laboratories, for controlling robots / cars / spiders / helicopters, for medical research and diagnostics. For the price of a 3d printer. The size of a cassette player.
This thing is a full-fledged psychophysiological laboratory that allows you to control roboruki (both with signals from EEG and myogram), to track heart rate, plethysmogram (change in lung volume), skin resistance, and so on.
The main feature of Bioradio is that it fits in my palm
while the complete set of MGUnogo EEG , with which I experimented, is placed in the trunk of a car.
There is a BioRadio API
a little more about bioradio
Sensor Kit
You can measure how you fidget on the stool, the temperature in the nose, the blood pressure and the strength of the hand.
EEG is a sensitive method of research (and susceptible to interference), it reflects the slightest changes in the function of the cerebral cortex and deep brain structures, providing a millisecond time resolution that is not available to other methods of studying brain activity, in particular PET and fMRI.
In Bioradio you can connect up to 8 EEG channels with a sampling frequency: 250-16000 Hz
Flexible visualization and data processing system
Modern software with a visual development environment and planning experiments
By default, there are megamny presets, for example, for working with roboruka
Write scientific papers based on data from Bioradio
In this video, the lab technician controls the spider-robot with electrical signals from the muscles
In this video stream physiological data from a person who is -3 months old
You can measure how you fidget on the stool, the temperature in the nose, the blood pressure and the strength of the hand.
EEG is a sensitive method of research (and susceptible to interference), it reflects the slightest changes in the function of the cerebral cortex and deep brain structures, providing a millisecond time resolution that is not available to other methods of studying brain activity, in particular PET and fMRI.
In Bioradio you can connect up to 8 EEG channels with a sampling frequency: 250-16000 Hz
Flexible visualization and data processing system
Modern software with a visual development environment and planning experiments
By default, there are megamny presets, for example, for working with roboruka
Write scientific papers based on data from Bioradio
In this video, the lab technician controls the spider-robot with electrical signals from the muscles
In this video stream physiological data from a person who is -3 months old
Near future
Now, 2 technologies are on the way - neural dust and tattoo.
Neural dust
A group from the University of California at Berkeley proposed a way to reduce the size of implantable elements to a few micrometers and literally fill them with the choroid.
Device particles "neuropiles"
The ultraminiature electronic sensors developed by them consist of a chip made of CMOS technology, a piezocrystal, electrodes, and an insulating polymer shell. The principle of their operation resembles the practice of using radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that do not require an integrated power source.
According to the authors, the particles of neuropyles circulate freely in the bloodstream. Practically, this is difficult to achieve due to the complex composition of the blood, the biological mechanisms of its purification and the structure of the endothelium, but imagine for a moment that these problems have been solved. Then the simultaneous number of microsensors in the vessels of the brain at any given time can amount to thousands.
Each of these “smart particles” will be able to measure the electrical activity of nearby neurons. During the first phase, the piezoelectric crystal converts the ultrasonic waves from the intermediate module into electrical signals and feeds the CMOS circuit. During the second, it acts the opposite - it vibrates under the influence of the action potentials of the nearest group of neurons.
Piezoelectric effect in the particle "neyropoly"
Compared to RFID, the proposed scheme has at least two important differences. In addition to electromagnetic waves (external level), ultrasound (internal level) is used, and an intermediate module provides amplification of the response signal of microsensors, its conversion and further transmission.
The latter is located under the dura mater and acts as a transceiver, allowing you to avoid strong attenuation of ultrasound and overcome the shielding effect of the bones of the skull.
As applied to the brain-computer interfaces in the first approximation, this is equivalent to increasing the accuracy of determining a mental command tenfold.
More on Computerra or article
Flexible smart "tattoo"
For the first time, scientists from the University of California at San Diego presented this invention to the world in 2011.
Components are located on an area of ​​1x2 cm. Transistors, antenna, coils, temperature sensors, photodetectors, EEG, ECG and EMG sensors. Connecting contacts of silicon and gallium arsenide.
Article
This high-tech “sandwich” has a thickness of 40 microns, and for fasteners, a substrate made of polyester is used - which is also used on transfer tattoos for children.
Currently, a tattoo sensor is able to continuously collect data for 6 hours and is on the body for up to one day, with the main task of researchers now is to increase these figures. At the same time, it is worth noting that, in spite of the ready-made solution, the release date of this device for general use is not announced yet.
In the meantime, marketing and hackers were engaged in neural interfaces (at the 31C3 congress in 2014, there was a report on work towards hacking BCI):
PS Probably in the future antiviruses will be treated much more attentively.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/255945/
All Articles