In the future, we may be able to control machines with our minds. Although that may open the door to others being able to use machines to control our minds.
A new kind of neural interface system that coordinates the activity of hundreds of tiny brain sensors could one day deepen the understanding of the brain and lead to new medical therapies.
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are emerging assistive devices that may one day help people with brain or spinal injuries move or communicate. BCI systems acquire, analyze and translate brain signals into commands that are transmitted to output devices that perform the required actions. Most current BCI systems use one or two sensors to pattern up to a few hundred neurons. However, Neuroscientists are interested in systems capable of gathering data from much larger groups of brain cells.
Now, a group of researchers has taken a key step closer to a brand new idea for a future BCI system, one that employs a coordinated network of independent, wireless microscale neural sensors, each approximately the scale of a grain of salt, to record and stimulate brain activity. The sensors, dubbed “neurograins,” independently record the electrical pulses made through firing neurons and send the signals wirelessly to a primary hub, which coordinates and approaches the signals.
In a study published on August 12 in Nature Electronics, the crew validated the usage of nearly 50 such self-sustaining neurograins to document neural activity in a rodent.
This study helps to look into the new insights of how the brain works and the method therapies which are effective for people with brain and spinal injuries.
The team, which incorporates experts from Brown, Baylor University, University of California at San Diego and Qualcomm, began the works of developing the device about four years in the past. The mission was two-fold, said Nurmikko, who’s affiliated with Brown’s Carney Institute for Brain Science. The primary element required shrinking the complex electronics involved in detecting, amplifying and transmitting neural signals into the tiny silicon neurograin chips. The team first designed and simulated the electronics on a computer, and went through several fabrication iterations to develop the operational chips.
“This work was a true multidisciplinary challenge,” said Jihun Lee, a Postdoctoral Researcher at Brown and the study’s lead author. “We had to bring together expertise in electromagnetics, radio frequency communication, circuit design, fabrication and neuroscience to design and operate the neurograin system.”
The aim of this new study is to demonstrate a system that could record neural signals from a living brain, for example, the brain of a rodent. The crew positioned forty-eight neurograins at the animal’s cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain, and effectively recorded characteristic neural signals associated with spontaneous brain activity.
There’s much more work to be done to make that complete system a reality, but researchers said this study represents a key step in that direction.
“Our hope is that we can ultimately develop a system that provides new scientific insights into the brain and new therapies that can help people affected by devastating injuries,” Nurmikko said.
Reference: Brown University, Nature electronics.
Also, Have a Read: How your brain retrieves knowledge about the world
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