BCIs & Neurotechnology News and Discussions

[wjfox]

Musk start-up Neuralink seeks people for brain-implant trial

1 hour ago

Elon Musk's brain-computer interface (BCI) start-up Neuralink has begun recruiting people for its first human trial.

The company's goal is to connect human brains to computers and it wants to test its technology on people with paralysis.

A robot will help implant a BCI that will let them control a computer cursor, or type, using thoughts alone.

But rival companies have already implanted BCI devices in humans.

Neuralink won US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its first human clinical trial, in May, a critical milestone after earlier struggles to gain approval.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66865895

[weatheriscool]

New drug offers relief for treatment-resistant epilepsy patients, clinical trial finds
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10- ... ients.html

In cases where standard therapies fail, a medication called XEN1101 reduces seizure frequency by more than 50% in some patients and sometimes eliminates them altogether, a new study shows. Unlike several treatments that must be started at low doses and slowly ramped up, the new drug can safety be taken at its most effective dose from the start, the authors say.

Focal seizures, the most common type seen in epilepsy, occur when nerve cells in a particular brain region send out a sudden, excessive burst of electrical signals. Along with seizures, this uncontrolled activity can lead to abnormal behavior, periods of lost awareness, and mood changes. While many available therapies control or reduce seizures, they fail to stop seizures in about one-third of patients and may cause harsh side effects, experts say.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, a new clinical trial found that patients who added XEN1101 to their current antiseizure treatments saw a 33% to 53% drop in monthly seizures, depending on their dose. By contrast, those given a placebo had on average 18% fewer seizures during the treatment phase of the trial, which lasted eight weeks.

Most patients then volunteered to extend the trial, with about 18% of those treated with the new drug remaining entirely seizure free after six months, and about 11% having no seizures after a year or longer.

"Our findings show that XEN1101 may offer a swift, safe, and effective way to treat focal epilepsy," said study lead author, neurologist Jacqueline French, MD. "These promising results offer hope for those who have struggled for decades to get their symptoms under control."

[caltrek]

Robotic Prosthetic Ankle Boosts Stability
by Matt Shipman
October 19, 2023

Introduction:

(Futurity) Robotic prosthetic ankles that are controlled by nerve impulses allow amputees to move more naturally, improving their stability, according to a new study.

“This work focused on ‘postural control,’ which is surprisingly complicated,” says Helen Huang, a professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and UNC Chapel Hill and corresponding author of the study in Science Robotics.

“Basically, when we are standing still, our bodies are constantly making adjustments in order to keep us stable. For example, if someone bumps into us when we are standing in line, our legs make a wide range of movements that we are not even necessarily aware of in order to keep us upright.

“We work with people who have lower limb amputations, and they tell us that achieving this sort of stability with prosthetic devices is a significant challenge. And this study demonstrates that robotic prosthetic ankles which are controlled using electromyographic (EMG) signals are exceptionally good at allowing users to achieve this natural stability.”

EMG signals are the electrical signals recorded from an individual’s muscles.

Read more of the Futurity article here: https://www.futurity.org/robotic-prost ... 8602-2

For a presentation of the results of the study as published in Science Robotics: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sc ... s.adf5758

[wjfox]

Pretty damn impressive - check out the video.

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Parkinson's implant restores man's ability to walk

3 hours ago

A man with advanced Parkinson's disease has been helped to walk again with a special implant that stimulates nerves in his spine.

Marc Gauthier, 63, from Bordeaux, France, the first person to try out the device, says it has given him a second chance in life.

He can now walk for miles, when previously he was often housebound and had several falls a day.

The medical team treating him describe the advance in Nature Medicine journal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67295526

[weatheriscool]

Brain implants revive cognitive abilities long after traumatic brain injury in clinical trial
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12- ... ities.html
by Stanford University Medical Center

In 2001, Gina Arata was in her final semester of college, planning to apply to law school, when she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. The injury so compromised her ability to focus she struggled in a job sorting mail.

"I couldn't remember anything," said Arata, who lives in Modesto with her parents. "My left foot dropped, so I'd trip over things all the time. I was always in car accidents. And I had no filter—I'd get pissed off really easily."

Her parents learned about research being conducted at Stanford Medicine and reached out; Arata was accepted as a participant. In 2018, physicians surgically implanted a device deep inside her brain, then carefully calibrated the device's electrical activity to stimulate the networks the injury had subdued. The results of the clinical trial were published Dec. 4 in Nature Medicine.

[weatheriscool]

Research team develops new technology for robotic prosthetic leg control
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12- ... c-leg.html
by Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST)

A research team led by Professor Sang-hoon Lee at the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology has successfully developed an imperceptive surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor. The sensor is crucial in allowing lower limb amputees to control robotic prosthetic legs as they want and is expected to contribute greatly to rehabilitation and a better quality of life.

With the recent rise in lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, there is a rapidly growing number of additional lower limb amputees. The permanent effects of lower limb amputation are not only physical disability but also psychological disability. To tackle this problem, bionic lower limb technology has been developed in recent years to replace a lost leg with robotic prosthetics.

The most important thing in developing robotic prosthetic legs is to stably implement the lower limb function as intended by amputees, and in order to do so, the ability to rapidly and accurately acquire the amputees' biological signals is required. The most suitable method is to use non-invasive sEMG sensors; however, these sensors are difficult to use in practice.

[weatheriscool]

Real-time dopamine measurement using a flexible probe that minimizes brain damage
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12- ... mizes.html
by Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST)

A research team led by Jang Kyung-in, a Professor affiliated with the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering at DGIST, developed a dopamine measurement device that can precisely analyze dopamine concentration in real-time while minimizing brain damage.

Because the device facilitates accurate real-time dopamine measurements by using only one flexible brain-implantable probe, it is expected to be used as a core technology for developing customized probes for patients with degenerative brain diseases. The findings are published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

[caltrek]

Hybrid Biocomputer Fuses Human Brain Tissue with Computer Chips
Tom Hale
December 15, 2023

Introduction:

(IFL Science) Scientists have fused human brain tissue to a computer chip, creating a mini cyborg in a petri dish that can perform math equations and recognize speech.

Dubbed Brainoware, the system consists of brain cells artificially grown from human stem cells, which have been fostered to develop into a brain-like tissue. This mini-brain organoid is then hooked up to traditional hardware where it acts as a physical reservoir that can capture and remember the information it receives from the computer inputs.

The researchers wanted to explore the idea of exploiting the efficiency of the human brain’s architecture to supercharge computational hardware. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has massively increased the demand for computing power, but it’s somewhat limited by the energy efficiency and performance of the standard silicon chips.

"We wanted to ask the question of whether we can leverage the biological neural network within the brain organoid for computing. This is just proof-of-concept to show we can do the job," Feng Guo, study author and a bioengineer in the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University, told Tech Xplore.

To flex the muscles of the hybrid bio-computer, the researchers presented it with 240 audio clips of people saying different Japanese vowel sounds. Remarkably, the system is capable of learning the different sounds and recognizing them with approximately 78 percent accuracy.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/hybrid-bioc ... ps-72033

caltrek’s comment: Seems like there may be some ethical issues involved not discussed in the article. Maybe it is just me?

[weatheriscool]

Using AI to diagnose autism in children
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12- ... ldren.html
by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress

A multi-institutional Korean team of child and adolescent psychologists, behavioral scientists, ophthalmologists and biomedical systems informatics specialists has found that deep-learning-based AI systems can accurately diagnose children with autism. In their study, reported in the journal JAMA Network Open, the group created an autism-diagnosing tool using a learning-based AI system and tested it on human subjects.

Autism, known more formally as autism spectrum disorder, is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by problems with communication, social interaction, and oftentimes, repetitive movements. Prior research has suggested that as many as 1 in 36 people have some degree of autism. Prior research has also shown that the earlier it is diagnosed, the more can be done to help people with the disorder overcome problems that many experience.

[weatheriscool]

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

New treatment shows promise against fatal neurological disease: Study
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01- ... sease.html

French musician Guilhem Gallart, a member of the Fonky Family, is seen here with his partner Wahiba; he was diagnosed with ALS in 2015.

A new treatment shows promise against the deadly neurodegenerative disease ALS, a study based on mice showed Tuesday.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease after the famous baseball player, devastates nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

It affects about 30,000 Americans at any given time, causing progressive loss of motor and cognitive function. Most patients die within five years of their diagnosis.

In the new research, published in the journal PLOS Biology, a team led by Jeffrey Agar of Northeastern University investigated a way to target and stabilize an abundant enzyme that keeps cells safe from the toxic byproducts of consuming food and breathing oxygen.

Inherited mutations to the gene responsible for production of this protein, called SOD1, are involved in many cases of ALS, and at other times such mutations can occur without family history.

A malfunctioning SOD1 gene causes the protein to assemble into the wrong shape. This prevents it from doing its tasks, but can also trigger a build up of protein clumps that are also a hallmark of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other diseases.

[caltrek]

...

More on that:

Elon Musk's Neuralink Is Now Inside A Human Being
by Miriam Fauzia
January 30, 2024

Introduction:

(Inverse) Last May, neurotech startup Neuralink received the federal green light to test its brain implant in human clinical trials. Now, less than a year later, Neuralink’s founder Elon Musk announced on X (formerly Twitter) that its brain-computer interface (or BCI) device was successfully placed in a human recipient.

“The first human received an implant from @Neuralink yesterday and is recovering well. Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” Musk posted late Monday.

Dubbing the name for the brain implant “Telepathy,” Musk offered no other details or specifics on the participant or the procedure itself; Neuralink did not immediately respond to Inverse’s email requesting comment.

According to a company blog post, its clinical trials — described as part of Neuralink’s Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface (or PRIME) Study — involve placing and installing their quarter-sized N1 brain implant, using a robot along a region of the brain controlling movement intention. The chip is designed to pick up the user’s brain signals, which are used to control an external device.

“[Telepathy] [e]nables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking. Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs,” Musk added in another post. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer. That is the goal.”

Read more here: https://www.inverse.com/health/neurali ... an-trials

Extract:

(Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) Pursuant to California’s state open records law, the Physicians Committee (for Responsible Medicine) obtained animal use protocols and amendments, health records, surgical logs, necropsy reports, and other documents
related to the use of monkeys in invasive brain experiments funded by Neuralink.
…
The records reviewed by the Physicians Committee indicate that many, if not all, of the monkeys
experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive
experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of
developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a “brain-machine
interface.” These highly invasive implants and their associated hardware, which are inserted in
the brain after drilling holes in the animals’ skulls, have produced recurring infections in the
animals, significantly compromising their health, as well as the integrity of the research.

Read more here: https://pcrm.widen.net/s/7tqn59fhm8/202 ... s-reduced

[Powers]

Historical moment or not yet?

[firestar464]

more like musk did cringe again

[weatheriscool]

more like musk did cringe again

Lets be honest. It is cringe because the people that he is supporting are going to kill and ban such programs if they get their way and musk is going to have a blink stare on his face as he wonders wtf just happened? The guy is an idiot. Same for driverless cars and probably for AGI.

[firestar464]

You make good points, but my issue was more with how the animals died in pain and agony and now he wants to try it on people, somehow expecting different results

[caltrek]

New Neurotechnology is Blurring the Lines Around Mental Privacy − but are New Human Rights the Answer?
by Laura Y. Cabrera
February 2, 2024

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Neurotechnologies – devices that interact directly with the brain or nervous system – were once dismissed as the stuff of science fiction. Not anymore. Several companies are developing and some are even testing “brain-computer interfaces,” or BCIs, of which the most high-profile is likely Elon Musk’s Neuralink. He announced on Jan. 29, 2024, that the first human in the company’s clinical trials has received a brain implant.

Like other companies, Neuralink’s immediate goal is to improve autonomy for patients with severe paralysis or other neurological disorders.

But not all BCIs are envisioned for medical use: There are EEG headsets that sense electrical activity inside the wearer’s brain covering a wide range of applications, from entertainment and wellness to education and the workplace. Yet, Musk’s ambitions go beyond these therapeutic and nonmedical uses. Neuralink aims to eventually help people “surpass able-bodied human performance.”

Neurotechnology research and patents have soared at least twentyfold over the past two decades, according to a United Nations report, and devices are getting more powerful. Newer devices have the potential to collect data from the brain and other parts of the nervous system more directly, with higher resolution, in greater amounts and in more pervasive ways.

However, these improvements have also raised concerns about mental privacy and human autonomy – questions I think about in my research on the ethical and social implications of brain science and neural engineering. Who owns the generated data, and who should get access? Could this type of device threaten individuals’ ability to make independent decisions?

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/profiles/l ... a-435096

[weatheriscool]

New brain stimulation technique shows promise for treating brain disorders
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02- ... rders.html
by Institute for Basic Science

The human brain's adaptability to internal and external changes, known as neural plasticity, forms the foundation for understanding cognitive functions like memory and learning, as well as various neurological disorders.

New research conducted by a team led by Dr. Park Joo Min of the Center for Cognition and Sociality within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) unveils a novel technique that could transform the treatment landscape for brain disorders. The work has been published in Science Advances.

The team developed a non-invasive brain stimulation method called Patterned Low-Intensity Low-Frequency Ultrasound (LILFUS), which holds tremendous potential for inducing long-lasting changes in brain function.

Traditionally, magnetic and electrical brain stimulation methods have been used to modulate brain function. However, these methods come with inherent limitations that restrict their spatial resolution and penetration depth, making it challenging to precisely stimulate specific brain regions with optimal efficacy.

More invasive methods, such as those that require surgical procedures, exhibit superior control and therapeutic effects for specific deep brain stimulation, but they come with risks such as tissue damage, inflammation, and infection. These limitations have fueled the search for alternative approaches that can overcome these constraints and provide more efficient and precise modulation of brain function.

In the latest study unveiled by the IBS, researchers used ultrasound to enable precise stimulation of specific brain areas. Unlike electromagnetic waves, ultrasound has the advantage of being able to penetrate deep into the brain tissues.

[weatheriscool]

Brain waves found to travel in one direction when memories are made and the opposite when recalled
https://newatlas.com/medical/viral-myoc ... ll-damage/
by Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science

In the space of just a few seconds, a person walking down a city block might check their phone, yawn, worry about making rent, and adjust their path to avoid a puddle. The smell from a food cart could suddenly conjure a memory from childhood, or they could notice a rat eating a slice of pizza and store the image as a new memory.

For most people, shifting through behaviors quickly and seamlessly is a mundane part of everyday life.