Keywords
Citation
Rudall, B.H. (1999), "Devices controlled by thought", Kybernetes, Vol. 28 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1999.06728iaa.006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
Devices controlled by thought
Keywords Automation, Cybernetics, Research, Technological developments
Abstacts Reports and surveys are given of selected current research and development in systems and cybernetics. They include: RSI and the brain, Innovations, Biocybernetics, Mathematics and cybernetics, Molecular devices, Devices controlled by thought, Automation and cybernetics, VDU radiation.
Devices controlled by thought
New working systems
We have in previous issues given details of some of the latest advances in "thought-controlled" machines. At first the concept of any devices being controlled by the brain of a human being or animal appeared to be greeted with derision. Scientists have now not only demonstrated that this is possible but have produced working systems. It is now established that a human can command devices remotely using the brain. Thinking a switch "on" or "off" or wanting a door to be opened is possible and each day more and more sophisticated systems are being built around the interpretation of activities that occur in the brain.
This has always been regarded as a SciFi scenario; and hardly part of the real world of possibility. Without claiming that systems have been developed that are capable of fully interpreting even the least complex thought, simple actions can be linked to activity in certain parts of the brain and can consequently be monitored. We are still in the area of research that has achieved the capability of identifying simple desires but there are hopes for much more and there are projects worldwide that have the aims of developing systems that can identify and analyse the thoughts not only of humans but also of animals. Initially the brains are wired up, as opposed to those systems where electrical patterns from the brain can be received and stored for analysis. Two reports from research centres in the USA give us an indication of the current state of development in this area.
Progress of current research
The progress of current research is very encouraging and at the Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, USA, a team of researchers led by Dr John Chapin have wired up the brains of rats so that they can move a robot arm by thought alone. This, the scientists say, brings nearer the prospects of developing a thought-operated computer or prosthetic limbs being controlled by the mind.
In this experiment six rats were trained to press a lever bar that operated an electric robot arm that is able to bring them water. In their findings the research team say that they found that the bar-pressing paw movement was preceded by a burst of activity from a group of neurons in the brain of the animal; this had been recorded by electrodes that had been implanted in the brain. Then they developed a system that allowed the brain cells to operate the robot arm directly, without the paw having to move the lever. Signals from the implants were fed to a computer and used to generate the current needed to power the arm. The rats, it would appear, could then obtain their reward simply by thinking of pressing the bar. It is reported that after a short while the rats learned the trick and stopped going through the motions of pressing the lever or pressed it less often.
These results have been written up in the Nature Neuroscience Journal (June 1999). The researchers say in their published findings that the results raised the possibility of restoring movement to paralysed patients by allowing their brains to control external devices, or even their own muscles.
Dr Eberhard Fetz of the University of Washington, USA, has commented in the same journal about this research. Working at the School of Medicine in Seattle, he believes that this research has far-reaching implications. He pinpoints the technical problems of recording the output of the brain cells as being one of the main problems to be solved.