Harnessing Thought to Help the Injured
- From: "Cowboy" <msbuckaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 13 Jul 2006 16:26:27 -0700
Harnessing Thought to Help the Injured
By SHIRLEY WANG and ANTONIO REGALADO
July 13, 2006; Page B1
Scientists have long dreamed of harnessing thoughts to allow amputees
to move their prosthetic limbs or patients with brain-stem injuries to
speak with the aid of a computer.
Results released today from a clinical trial of four paralyzed patients
suggest the mind-control technology faces complex challenges but
appears to be feasible. In the latest in a series of pioneering human
tests of direct mind control over electronic devices, a start-up
company founded by leading neuroscientists reports in the journal
Nature that a patient who had electrodes implanted in his brain used
his thoughts to control a computer cursor, send email and operate a
robotic arm.
Engineers have envisioned using the mind to directly control devices
for decades, but technological advances and better understanding of the
brain have made actual tests in humans possible only recently. And some
hope that new investments by the U.S. military will result in a few
years in new devices to help veterans and others with devastating
injuries.
"The whole field is bubbling up," says Philip Kennedy, chief scientist
and CEO of Neural Signals, a closely held Atlanta company doing
research in the field. While still at an early stage, excitement over
early findings has led to increases in funding and attention.
The four-patient trial, including the patient described in Nature, uses
what's known as a "neural prosthetic," an implant to record nerve
signals inside the brain and use them to control electronic devices.
The study was paid for and the brain implant built by Cyberkinetics
Neurotechnology Systems Inc., a Foxborough, Mass. company.
Researchers caution that it will likely take a decade for brain
implants or similar devices to come to market -- a long time for
companies in the field to wait for a payoff. "This is a start, showing
efficacy in a human, but still far from being a useful device," says
Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology and bioengineering at the
University of Pittsburgh who has conducted similar research in monkeys.
Scientists are pursuing a range of strategies to achieve the goal of
direct mind control over machines. Some efforts measure signals inside
the brain, others use brain waves that can be recorded outside the
skull.
Creating a fast, reliable and, above all, natural way for patients to
use limbs and senses that they thought were gone is the ultimate goal
of the field of brain-computer interfaces, says Leigh Hochberg, a
neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital who is the lead author
of the Nature article.
The study shows that "this part of the brain can still be used to
control an external device even years after spinal-cord injury," Dr.
Hochberg says.
The large number of injured soldiers returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan has motivated the government to accelerate prosthetics
research. In February, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency kicked off two programs backed by $48.5 million in funding to
create artificial limbs, including ones that can be operated by the
wearer's thoughts.
"We can have a big impact on people's lives. People who have been doing
their part on behalf of the country," says Rick Needham, an engineer
with Manchester, N.H.-based DEKA Research & Development Corp., which is
being funded by Darpa. DEKA, whose president, Dean Kamen, also created
the Segway upright scooter, is working on a sophisticated
battery-powered prosthetic arm with rotating shoulder, elbow and wrist
joints.
To effectively operate such sophisticated devices, direct brain control
could be useful. Scientists like Dr. Schwartz have shown that by
placing electrodes in the brains of monkeys, they can listen in on
nerve signals that tell them how an animal intends to move.
In one 2000 experiment, for instance, researchers at Duke University
used a monkey's thoughts to control a robot hundreds of miles away in
Massachusetts.
In the Cyberkinetics clinical trial, doctors have surgically implanted
nearly 100 electrodes in the brains of four patients. Computer software
was used to pick up signals from the patient's brains as they imagined
making movements, such as moving their arms.
The patient whose experience was described in Nature is Matthew Nagle,
who was paralyzed in 2001 when he was 21. He was the first person
outfitted with the Cyberkinetics system. He was able to draw simple
figures on a computer screen, and even play the videogame Pong, using
his thoughts. Mr. Nagle's implant also was connected to a robotic arm,
which he used to move an object, and a prosthetic hand, which he opened
and closed.
Mr. Nagle had the device removed at the end of his one-year trial in
order to have an operation to assist his breathing.
Since 2004, Cyberkinetics has raised more than $17 million from selling
stock and warrants to investors. The company's stock is traded on the
OTC Bulletin Board, where stocks of small companies often trade when
they can't meet the listing requirements for the larger Nasdaq market.
Joseph Pancrazio, program director for neural engineering in the
division of extramural research of the National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Md., says the Nature
study "has tremendous implications for the application of brain-machine
interfaces with people with disabilities." Given that so much earlier
work with implants involved healthy monkeys, their employment in
injured humans is "a major milestone." The institute spent $25 million
on neural prosthetics in 2005, he says, and funded work that led to the
current study.
Not all scientists in the field are ready to be impressed yet. "I'm
asking myself, what was the advantage that the patient got?" says
Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University. "What
has been accomplished could have been accomplished from noninvasive
methods?"
[cyborg]
The New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center in Albany,
N.Y., has been working on using a less-invasive technology, a
brain-wave cap, which fits much like a swim cap, to allow patients to
email from their homes, according to Jonathan Wolpaw, who heads the
center's laboratory that studies nervous-system disorders. The first
patient, a scientist in his late 40s with amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, was fitted with a
brain-computer-interface system in February and can send emails at the
rate of a couple words a minute. A second user, an ALS sufferer in his
late 60s, will be fitted with the system this month. The entire system
costs less than $5,000.
Dr. Wolpaw's research program, whose funding comes from the National
Institutes of Health and various private foundations, is looking into
establishing a nonprofit company for this technology in the next few
months.
For a few patients, any connection to the outside world may be of
value. Neural Signals is in the process of harnessing
brain-computer-interface technology to restore conversational speech in
people who have lost the ability to talk. An electrode is implanted
into one brain region involved in speech, Broca's area, and a computer
tries to translate the patterns into sound.
The company has implanted electrodes in five patients since 1996,
according Dr. Kennedy, the CEO. Their current patient, a 23-year-old
who suffered brain-stem trauma from a stroke following a car accident,
received the implant in December 2004. He has limited ability to move
just his eyes. After his semiweekly sessions using the system, he is
able to make seven sounds or short words, including "yes" and "no." The
goal is to give him the ability to speak 100 words, a goal that is
reachable within the year, according to Dr. Kennedy.
Write to Shirley Wang at shirley.wang@xxxxxxxx and Antonio Regalado at
antonio.regalado@xxxxxxxx
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115274937020005165.html
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