The power of thought

Interview with Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor A.Ya. KaplanProgrammer Magazine No. 14-2011

The worlds of fiction are getting closer and closer to us. Who would have thought that until recently we were reading "Ariel", and today an ordinary person with a portable neurocomputer interface can already control a toy car with the power of thought and put puzzles together.

Yes, that's right. And don't confuse it with systems based on gaze direction tracking. It is doubly gratifying that these are our domestic developments. Today, the brain-computer interface (BCI) is being developed in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology and neurocomputer interfaces at the Lomonosov Moscow State University biofactory.

We decided to invite Alexander Yakovlevich Kaplan, the head of this laboratory, the scientific director of the NSCI and IMC projects at Moscow State University and the National Kurchatov Center, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, to visit us. We will still conduct the interview in question-and-answer mode...

Editorial office: Hello, Alexander Yakovlevich. Welcome to our section. First, tell us a little about yourself: who are you, where are you from, family, children?Alexander: Everything is like everyone else, both family and children.

The place of work from student times to the present is the same – the Department of Human Physiology, the Faculty of Biology of Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Editorial board: Why did you connect your activity with science?Alexander: It just happened.

I started by unwinding the alarm clock, then the compass... and so it went, now here is the human brain.

Editorial Office: How do your loved ones feel about your work?Alexander: Respectfully, but without enthusiasm.

Editorial board: When did the first such interfaces appear?Alexander: The first attempts began in the 80s of the last century in Germany to help completely paralyzed people manage a wheelchair and communicate.

Such people are closed inside themselves and do not have the opportunity to contact the world, their living brain is deprived of exits to the outside. First, they were taught to move the cursor on a computer monitor and answer "yes" or "no". Then a way was found to write: when the letter conceived by the patient appears on the monitor, a clearer peak appears on the EEG. But here there is a problem of the speed of "writing". And we are also working on it.

Editorial Office: How did the project whose ideas were fundamental come about?Alexander: If you are talking about the brain-computer interface project of the IMC, then this was a natural continuation of our developments on EEG decoding.

I wanted to check how well we understand the nature of those electrical echoes of brain activity that can be registered directly from the skin surface of the head. The key question is whether a person will be able to manage the characteristics of the EEG, which ones and how quickly. So at first we directly linked the change in these characteristics with the RGB engine of a computer monitor. The subjects were not informed about these subtleties of the study. It turned out that this technical equipment allowed the brain to select its preferred color literally "by the power of thought" and without the knowledge of the owner of the brain. With the publication of an article on this topic in the International Journal of Neuroscience in 2005, everything began. Then we went, typewriters, typewriters, puzzles, browsers, and now we take up the project of a manipulator controlled by thought, computer games. (In the picture, Professor Kaplan is conducting another test of the brain-computer interface, driving a toy car. EEG changes associated with mental commands are interpreted by a laptop computer and transmitted to a typewriter.)

Editorial Office: Who else is working on IMC projects?Alexander: Dozens of laboratories have been working abroad for 15 years.

In recent years, several teams have appeared in Russia that started with IMC projects.

Foreign experience.
AutoNOMOS researchers from the Free University of Berlin have developed a headset for controlling a machine with the power of thought. Sensors transmit the driver's mental orders wirelessly to the car's electronics. All you have to do is think: "left or right", "faster or slower", and the machine obediently obeys orders. The technology, which was given the name BrainDriver, uses data obtained from video cameras, radars and laser sensors that give a 3D picture of the environment. The driver wears special headphones equipped with 16 sensors that read the electromagnetic signals of the brain. The received signals are processed by a computer that has been taught to distinguish between "left or right" commands. In the first test, the driver was able to turn, albeit with a slight delay between the command and the reaction of the car. In the second test, the car was taught to recognize four commands, adding the ability to increase and decrease speed. So far, no decision has been made on whether this technology will be put into mass production (Editorial office).

Editorial board: Sources of funding for the IMC project?Alexander: Of the most famous: The Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR and the Fund for the Promotion of Small Forms of Enterprises – the Bortnik Foundation).

Editorial board: We watched a video about the IMC puzzle created at the NSCI and demonstrated at an exhibition timed to coincide with the meeting of the Commission on Technical Development, which was held at the Moscow State University by the President of Russia D.A. Medvedev. What are the impressions of the leaders of the "higher echelons" of this implementation?Alexander: We asked key questions and were impressed by the success of Russian science.

The Skolkovo project managers gave a high assessment and recommended to "integrate" into this project.

Editorial board: Surely foreign colleagues are interested? Are your works classified?Alexander: Our work is in line with the global trend of civic research in this area, which provides for the free exchange of information through scientific journals and conferences.

There is nothing secret in our work. However, we try to issue patents.

Editorial board: Do our military show interest in the IMC?Alexander: I don't really know this, although, undoubtedly, in this area and in the field of prevention of antisocial and anti-terrorist activities, it would also be possible to implement the potential of IMC technologies, which by their nature work with human intentions manifested at the EEG level.

Editorial board: Sensors for IMC of domestic production?Alexander: "Sensors for IMC" is a whole path: from electrodes to a command translator for actuators.

Of course, the electronic elements are foreign, the most modern, even the probes were used, but the schemes of their connection and all the algorithms, programs, of course, are ours. Therefore, the "Sensors for IMC" are obviously of domestic production. But if they are commercialized, then it turns out that our existing layouts should be given "for alteration" somewhere in China...

Editorial board: Do you have any publications? Where, if not a secret?Alexander: It can't be a secret.

Publications are actually the only reporting documentation of a scientist! Of course, we have publications in leading Russian scientific publications, and in foreign journals of the corresponding profile. Look at our website, everything is laid out there for novice colleagues and for professionals.

Editorial board: What other projects are you engaged in?Alexander: In addition to several projects with the IMC, we continue to study the basic mechanisms of the brain, the nature of some of its pathologies, and we are trying to advance our knowledge about the brain in creating a new generation of Internet social networks.

Editorial board: Are they invited to international conferences?Alexander: Many, many times...

Editorial board: Do you have any inventions, rationalizations, if any, which ones?Alexander: There are Russian and international patents, including for IMC

Editorial board: Where is it better for "our scientist" to work, at home or abroad?Alexander: It's different for everyone, but the general rule is still visible so far: "where I was born, there...

not useful...".

Editorial board: Do you have students? What is your teaching activity related to?Alexander: My official duty is to find out the laws of Nature, I am a researcher.

However, working at the University, of course, I invest my experience and knowledge in it in the form of educational and popular lectures and practical classes with students, students of various courses and projects, and the main pedagogical activity is working with my graduate students and postgraduates.

Editorial board: Do your graduates or students help you on occasion in life?Alexander: Of course...

as friends and comrades.

Editorial board: What projects are your students engaged in?Alexander: Very different, in Russia and in many countries of the world, but all about the human brain.

Editorial Office: Which of the literature would you recommend to aspiring bioengineering physicists?Alexander: Pribram K.

Brain languages, Wooldridge D. Brain Mechanisms, G.Walter The Living Brain, D.J. DiLorenzo Neuroengineering, T.W. Berger et al. Brain-Computer Interfaces: An international assessment of research and development trends.

Editorial Office: What would you change or refine in the modern institute of national science?Alexander:

• Mandatory international review of applications for scientific projects.
• I would draw attention to the need not only to pump science with money and build new institutions, but also to create an optimal science infrastructure so that money and institutions work in the right place, at the right time and are provided with information support.

Editorial Office: How does knowledge of information technologies help in scientific activity?Alexander: Currently, this is 75% success rate.

Editorial board: Tell us about your hobbies?Alexander: I like to travel the world and... do science.

Editorial board: And our traditional questions... Which of the electronic magazines do you read? And from the printed ones? What are the guidelines for you?Alexander: I practically don't sit in the networks...

only on professional websites: library and personal pages of colleagues. Of the printed ones – mostly 20-30 foreign magazines on the topic of main interests. The orientation is not journals, but achievements in the scientific world... I read about them wherever I come across, but I filter them a lot.

Editorial board: Do you read on the road? What gadgets do you use?Alexander: On the road, I mostly read my own thoughts and use the appropriate gadgets for this.

Editorial board: TOP 5 daily views of Internet resources?ALEXANDER: Mail.ru , Google, PabMed, Yandex.

Editorial Office: How do you allocate time between paid work, hobbies and leisure?Alexander: Time itself is somehow distributed, because sometimes rest turns out to be work, and work is rest, and this rest is also paid for...

Editorial board: What are your plans for the future?Alexander: To devote more and more time to your own interests, and less and less to custom–made works...

But custom–made works provide these very own interests - I will probably take up the project of an EEG-controlled prosthetic hand... and also for EEG–controlled computer games.

Editors: Thank you, Alexander, for such an exciting interview. And finally, what would you like to wish our readers?Alexander: So that everyone has their own business of their own interest, and even useful for everyone.

In general, join us, we will create together…

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru25.05.2011