Non-invasive brain-to-brain interface: links between two brains

Direct communication between the brains of human and rat .... or between humans

We reported last month how Duke University researchers remotely linked the brains of two rats. Now researchers from

Block diagram of brain-to-brain interface (BBI). Left: steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-to-computer interface; right:focused ultrasound-based computer-to-brain interface (CBI). (Credit: Yoo S-S et al./PLoS ONE)

the U.S and South Korea have have taken it a step further: a non-invasive functional link … and between the brains of different species (human and rat) — a brain-to-brain interface (BBI).

The researchers — at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. — set up a system intended to allow a human to remotely make a rat’s tail flick. There was to be no direct connections between human and rat, and no direct connections to their brains (such as the implantable cortical microelectrode arrays, like those used in the Duke research and in BCI systems for quadriplegic patients, such as BrainGate).

The BBI system had two parts: a BCI, using EEG sensors and computer to pick up intenton from the human; and transcranial sonication of focused ultrasound (FUS) to modulate the neural activity of specific brain regions in the rat’s brain.

Wagging the rat

Here’s how it worked:

1. Human volunteers looked at a strobed image (flickering) and EEG sensors picked up the resulting  visual-evoked-potentials synchronized with the light.

2. The acquired EEG signal was filtered through a digital bandpass filter centered at the flickering frequency (to eliminate other brain signals). A computer analyzed the resulting signals, determined statistically when there was a significant detection, and sent a signal to the rat.

3. A piezoelectric ultrasound transducer operating at 350 kHz delivered focused acoustic pressure waves on the motor area of an anesthetized rat’s brain associated with tail movement.

4. The rat’s tail movement was detected by a motion sensor.

The “Brainstorm’ scenario

Brainstorm (credit: MGM)

This experiment was limited to a simple on-off signal. However, the researchers say it should be possible to detect hand movements by multiple EEG signals or real-time fMRI.

Those signals (on multiple channels) could be used to “sonicate each of the corresponding hemispheric forepaw motor areas of the rat’s brain, resulting in mirror-like limb-to-limb control of the rodent forepaw motion.”

But the research could go a lot further. In a concept right out of the moviesThe Cell (an FBI agent persuades a social worker to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim) and Brainstorm (a team of scientists invents “the Hat,”a brain/computer interface that allows sensations to be recorded from a person’s brain so that others can experience them), the researchers also see this happening between two awake human subjects. And it could be bidirectional, and over great distances, using the Internet.

What’s more, “Potential linking/sharing of neural processing information between individual identities can be conceptually applied to a feedback loop of the neural signal, enabling ‘autologous BBI’”— that is, the information would be fed back to the originating person. So it could be used to actively control or modify specific neural processing and associated cognitive/neural behavior, “which may confer unexplored opportunities in the study of neuroscience with potential implications for therapeutic applications.”

The findings suggest “intriguing new possibilities for computer-assisted volitional control/communication of brain states between individuals,” the researchers hint. “The BBI method may be used to augment this mutual coupling of the brains, and may have a positive impact on human social behavior” — or negative, if misused.

This technology raises some ethical questions, the researcher admit, and “complex challenges, possibly even undesirable consequences that may arise with the future application of this emerging technology.”

REFERENCES:

• Yoo S-S, Kim H, Filandrianos E, Taghados SJ, Park S, Non-Invasive Brain-to-Brain Interface (BBI): Establishing Functional Links between Two Brains, PLoS ONE, 2013, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060410 (open access)

Original article by KurzweilAi

Mapping the ‘fountain of youth’

University of Copenhagen researchers and an international team have for the first time mapped telomerase, an enzyme

with a rejuvenating effect on cell aging.

This is one of the results of a major research project involving more than 1,000 researchers worldwide, four years of hard work, DKK 55 million from the EU, and blood samples from more than 200,000 people.

It is the largest collaboration project ever to be conducted within cancer genetics, the researchers say.

Stig E. Bojesen, a researcher at the Faculty of Health and Medicial Sciences, University of Copenhagen, and staff specialist at the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Copenhagen University Hospital, Herlev, has headed the efforts to map telomerase — an enzyme capable of creating telomeres (new ends on cellular chromosomes).

“We have discovered that differences in the telomeric gene are associated both with the risk of various cancers and with the length of the telomeres. The surprising finding was that the variants that caused the diseases were not the same as the ones which changed the length of the telomeres. This suggests that telomerase plays a far more complex role than previously assumed,” says Bojesen.

The mapping of telomerase is an important discovery because telomerase is one of the very basic enzymes in cell biology. It re-lengthens the telomeres so that they get the same length before embarking on cell division.

“The mapping of telomerase may, among other things, boost our knowledge of cancers and their treatment, and with the new findings the genetic correlation between cancer and telomere length has been thoroughly illustrated for the first time,” says Bojesen.

Telomeres a cellular ‘multi-ride ticket’

The human body consists of 50,000,000,000,000 or fifty trillion cells, and each cell has 46 chromosomes, which are the structures in the nucleus containing our hereditary material, the DNA. The ends of all chromosomes are protected by telomeres.

Telomeres serve to protect the chromosomes in much the same way as the plastic sheath on the end of a shoelace. But each time a cell divides, the telomeres become a little bit shorter and eventually end up being too short to protect the chromosomes.

But some special cells in the body can activate telomerase, which again can elongate the telomeres. Sex cells, or other stem cells which must be able to divide more than normal cells, have this feature.

Unfortunately, cancer cells have discovered the trick, and it is known that they also produce telomerase and thus keep themselves artificially young. The telomerase gene therefore plays an important role in cancer biology, and it is precisely by identifying cancer genes that the researchers imagine that the identification rate and the treatment can be improved.

“A gene is like a country. As you map it, you can see what is going on in the various cities. One of the cities in what could be called Telomerase Land determines whether you develop breast cancer or ovarian cancer, while other parts of the gene determine the length of the telomeres.

“Mapping telomerase is therefore an important step towards being able to predict the risk of developing different cancers. In summary, our findings are very surprising and point in many directions. But as is the case with all good research, our work provides many answers but leaves even more questions,” says Bojesen.

REFERENCES:

• Stig E Bojesen et al., Multiple independent variants at the TERT locus are associated with telomere length and risks of breast and ovarian cancer, Nature Genetics, 2013, DOI: 10.1038/ng.2566 (open access)

Why bother with passwords when you can have passthoughts?

Some Berkeley researchers think they can get you to emit your password through your thoughts. Well, we're

always thinking "12345," aren't we?

Would you choose to save your fingers by wearing cat ears on your head.
I am not imbibing alcoholized catnip. I am merely marveling at the ideas that emerge from the minds of clever cats at Berkeley.

One of these ideas uses a technology called Neurosky. Those who find Google Glass to be highly inventive -- but maybe not so stylish -- will look at the Neurosky headsets and wonder just how soon after putting them on they will be intercepted by people in long, white coats.

There is a probe touching your forehead, resembling the same motion you sometimes make with your finger when you're feeling particularly stupid.

Still, these fine Berkeley minds believe that once you buy one of these relatively cheap pieces of headgear ($199), you'll be able to avoid ever having to type a password.

Yes, your favorite e-mail address or entertainment Web site will open with a mere passthought.
As The Verge reports, such an astonishingly subtle action can be achieved with an off-the-shelf electroencephalogram (EEG).



The Neurosky Mindset is one such device and its error rate in passing along passthoughts was allegedly 1 percent.

I do wonder, though, whether these results might be affected by mood. I know that when I am in a certain mood of, say, despair, my thoughts wander along a path that often gets me lost before night fall.
As you can see from the TechCrunch video I have embedded, this technology can be used for all kinds of useful pursuits, such as twitching cat ears perched on one's head.
Surely the two tasks can be combined.

Please imagine how beautiful it would be if you were sitting at work, cat ears on your head, and they twitched every time you entered a password.

If there's anything technology has taught us, it's that the mundane must be mixed with the entertaining to take hold.

I know so many people -- at least in the tech world -- who would dearly love to wear cat ears all day while performing life-affirming tasks, such as designing new apps to make you buy more things more often.

Original article by Chris Matyszczyk for Cnet news.