Brain Computer Interfaces - I

June 18, 2010

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We have a restless motor inside our heads, everything we do, every time we think, sleep, dream, and move, just being quiet or remembering something, our brain is working. Always working.

Our Central Nervous System consists of the brain and the spinal cord. It contains millions of two kinds of specialized cells. These two kinds of cells perform different tasks, the cells named glia have the task to provide support to the neurons as a framework and they also attend neuron's necessities.

The individual nerve cells are called neurons.

Neurons work in a complex network connecting to one another, by prolongations called dendrites and axons, using small electric signals, (ions moving across the neuronal membrane), that are very much like the electrical signals in electronic devices, (where instead of ions there are electrons moving along a wire).

A substance called myelin, which is an outgrowth of a glial cell forms a layer, called the myelin sheath that insulates the paths the signals take. Some of the electric signal always escapes and scientists can detect those signals.

Detecting those signals scientists can interpret what they mean, and what is really outstanding, they can use them to control special "man-made" devices.

Scientists can also use devices to send signals to the brain. By example in 1978 Dr. William Harvey Dobelle, who obtained his Ph.D. in neurophysiology at the University of Utah, created a prototype of brain implant that was implanted into the brain of a man blinded in adulthood. This first implant was improved thanks to electronic advances, and faster computers which made this artificial eye more portable enabling the user to perform simple tasks unassisted allowing him to "see" in spite of being blind.

In the 1970s at the &#&University of California&#& Los Angeles, the research on Brain Computer Interfaces, as well as the first appearance of the expression "brain computer interface" in scientific literature, began. They created devices that are a direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device.

Scientific researchers have been experimenting since long time ago with brain-computer interfaces, but only in the last 10 years have new technologies advanced far enough to make what was supposed to be impossible, possible.

A few days ago, on June, 2010 a team of four undergraduate students, Saumitro Dasgupta, Mike Fanton, Jonathan Pham, and Mike Willard, with the assistance of professor Bahram Shafai Ph.D, Northeastern University, and Assistant Professor Deniz Erdogmus, who received his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the &#&University of Florida&#& in 2002, won the first place in this year's ECE Capstone Project Competition with their project on utilizing brain signals to navigate a mobile robot remotely.