Driving a car using only one’s thoughts is no longer the stuff of science fiction. It may not be ready for commercial use, but scientists have successfully completed a road test of the world’s first mind-controlled car.
Created by researchers at the AutoNOMOS labs of Freie Universität Berlin, the technology uses commercially available electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors to detect four different patterns of brain activity, which a computer translates to “turn left,” “turn right,” “accelerate,” and “brake.” The road to this achievement was long, as AutoNOMOS says on its website:
Researchers have long been developing brain-computer interfacing (BCI) systems to enhance the quality of life for paralyzed or disabled people, enabling them to control gadgets such as computers and wheelchairs using only their minds. But the devices haven’t allowed humans to communicate with each other without speaking—until now.
Christopher James of the University of Southampton’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research has devised a way to achieve brain-to-brain communication using BCI technology—effectively allowing a person to send his or her thoughts/brainwaves through the Internet.
The process involves two people who are attached to an EEG amplifier, two computers, an Internet connection, and one LED lamp. In the test, the first subject was asked to transfer his thoughts through a computer. The thoughts were hardly personal —the subject was simply asked to move his arm, meaning he had to think “move my arm.” His thoughts were translated into computer language consisting of a series of binary digits, zeros and ones. For example, when he raised his right arm, the computer read a one, and when he raised his left arm, the computer read a zero.
Scientists have taught monkeys to control a robotic arm with their thoughts. No, the primates aren’t telekinetic—they have computerized brain implants—but their newfound ability is one of the most impressive examples yet of linking brains to machines.
The research team, led by Andrew Schwartz from the University of Pittsburgh, used two macaques in their study. They planted a tiny computer grid over each primate’s motor cortex, an area of the brain that normally controls the monkey’s arm movement. Then they mounted the robotic appendage, complete with elbow and shoulder joints and a claw for grabbing, on each animal’s shoulder where its normal arm is attached. The computerized implant would read the monkeys’ minds—or rather, it would pick up on their motor neurons firing—and translate those electrical impulses into the appropriate maneuver in the machine.
The Daily Mail has a profile of ten-year-old Jennifer Lloyd, who suffers from polyglandular Addison’s disease. The incredibly rare disease—so rare, in fact, that only six people on earth are known to have it—leaves her body unable to produce adrenaline when she’s exposed to any sudden emotional or physical stress, including fear.
Without adrenaline (also called epinephrine), the hormone that readies the body for “fight or flight” by increasing the flow of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles, Lloyd can go into shock and suffer organ failure from something as minor as a scare from a TV program. The disease has already wreaked havoc on her blood pressure and salt levels, and she suffers from accompanying stomach and kidney problems that require “a complex range of medication.” As a result, her parents keep a close eye on her TV watching, while Lloyd herself censors her viewing of scary scenes like the CGI spider bonanza in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The family has also set up a fund to raise money for research on the condition.
Of course, on the plus side, she’ll never have to come up with an excuse for missing Saw V.