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A new brain-computer interface has been created, which has record high indicators

DailyTechInfo based on Engadget: Implants enable richer communication for people with paralysis

In John Scalzi's science fiction novel "Lock In", a variant of the future was shown in which people affected by complete paralysis of the body can live a full life thanks to advances in the field of brain-computer interface (BCI). But the results of one of the latest studies conducted by scientists from Stanford University indicate that the ideas from the novel "Lock In" can be implemented in the real world after not so much time.

The idea of using BCI interfaces to provide paralyzed people with the opportunity to communicate with the outside world has not been news for a long time. However, everything that was created earlier in this direction had limited functionality, very low quality of work and low speed, which are clearly not enough to organize more or less normal communication with a person. And Stanford researchers managed to create a new type of BCI interface with the help of the most modern technologies, which provides a record-breaking accuracy of work and the speed with which a person can use the functions of this interface.

Stanford scientists used three human volunteers who were completely paralyzed as a result of Gehrig's disease or spinal cord injury. Tiny chips containing arrays of the thinnest electrodes were implanted into the brains of each of them. These electrodes were in contact with the nerve tissues of the area of the cerebral cortex responsible for limb movements and coordination of these movements. And after a short time, the most productive of the volunteers, Dennis Degray, was able to type "with the power of thought" at a speed of 39 characters, an average of eight words per minute, which is comparable to the speed of typing SMS text on a mobile phone without using tools that provide additional convenience and functions.

In creating a new BCI interface, scientists used the latest generation of a system called the BrainGate Neural Interface System. A tiny silicon chip of this system is surgically placed on the surface of the patient's brain. 100 electrodes of this chip penetrate into brain tissues, due to which they can detect signals from individual neurons, and not groups of neurons, as systems of previous generations could do.

And in conclusion, it should be noted that this case is the first time when the chip of the latest version of the BrainGate system was implanted in the patient's brain. And Stanford scientists predict that the BrainGate system version that has passed all the tests, the functionality of which will be much wider than the capabilities of the current version, will be able to appear in five years, and it can immediately be used in practice to provide paralyzed people with the opportunity to communicate with other people.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  27.02.2017