Researchers from Brown UniversityA wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) system was developed in the United States, which not only enables paralyzed people Use your thoughts to write on the device screen, Since it does not require cables, it also enables them to operate anywhere.
The traditional BCI was connected to a large transmitter through a long, long cable, but a team at Brown University removed it and replaced it with Small transmitter Place on the wearer’s head.
The redesigned device is only 2 inches in diameter and is connected to the electrode array inside the electrode. Motor cortex The same port used by the wired system.
In the test of the project, named Forehead, Showing that two men paralyzed by spinal cord injury were able to type and click on the tablet Just thinking about actions, And the accuracy and writing speed of doing so are similar to wired systems.
Although the tycoon Elon Musk A similar project is underway, and this is the first project successfully tested in humans. John Simeral An assistant professor of engineering at Brown University, a member of the BrainGate Research Consortium, and the lead author of the study said: “We have shown that this wireless system is functionally equivalent to the wired system that has been the gold standard for BCI performance for many years.”
“The signal is recorded and transmitted with similar fidelity, which means we can use Wired equipment”, Add to.
“The only difference is that people They no longer need to be in close contact with our team“He concluded that this opens up new possibilities for the way the system is used.
Participants in the trial included a 35-year-old man and a 63-year-old man. Both were paralyzed by spinal cord injury. Compared with the work that had to be done in the laboratory before, everyone can use BCI at home. Without cables, participants can wear BCI continuously for up to 24 hours even while sleeping, providing researchers with long-lasting data.
Leigh Hochberg, An engineering professor at Brown University, a researcher at the Brown Carney Institute for Brain Science, and the head of the BrainGate clinical trial, said: “We want to understand how neural signals evolve over time. With this system, we can observe brain activity at home, which was almost impossible before Achieved.
This will help us design decoding algorithms to provide smooth, intuitive, and reliable communication and recovery. The mobility of the paralyzed”.
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